The Rising
by shadesunrider13
Summary: Everyone I ever met told me that all I had to do was win the Games. Win the Games, and everything will take care of itself. And it has. The rebellion is coming. But I'm starting to think that the hard part is just beginning. Sequel to Outlanders. AU
1. Everybody's Fool

A/N: Hello, everyone. This is the sequel of Outlanders. As I said, the one major change is that Cato's perspective will be appearing, as is seen below. The story picks up a few days after the last chapter of Outlanders. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Cato:

The list of interview questions lands in the middle of my breakfast, right on the poached eggs. I hurry to pull it out, but by the time I get it clear of the food, one edge of it is already soaked in yolk. The yellow goo drips onto the carpet at Brutus's feet, and as I try to mop it up, he gives me a look that says quite plainly "You are the biggest failure known to man."

"Read those," he orders. "Figure out what you're going to say."

"Interviews aren't until tomorrow."

"You could use the extra time. I don't want you embarrassing District Two any further. And Cato, leave the carpet alone. Cleaning is a job for an Avox."

_Or a mutant_. Brutus walks out, banging the door shut behind him and leaving those three words unsaid. Figures. The guy has it in him to be the world's biggest asshole and he still can't say what he means. I know he's thinking it, though. The look on his ugly face tells it all.

I give up on the mess. It's not coming out of the carpet or the list, and really, how is this my problem? I'm a victor now. I have money to burn. More food than I could ever eat. All the time in the world. Being a victor means that you live the easy life. But I've been a victor for a week now, and so far, I don't think there's anything easy about it.

I glance at the first question on the list. _How did you get here? _Here being the victor's throne, of course. It's a pretty standard closing interview question; it gives the new victor room to talk about strategy, or start madly thanking their sponsors, or yap about whatever it is they think saved their life. Most District Two victors use this question to brag about their fighting prowess or relive their kills. Me, I'm not sure I even know where to begin.

_How did you get here? _Good question_. _Wish I knew.

It's been a week since they pulled us out of the arena, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of the other victors. I don't even know if they're still alive. Well, that's not true. I'm pretty sure that Lief from Seven and Katniss from Twelve are alive. Neither of them was hurt when they pulled us up into the hovercraft. Lover Boy, on the other hand, looked wrecked. His leg was practically chewed off at the knee, and he was bleeding all over the place. And then there's Spirit.

She was the biggest mess out of all of us. I carried her into the hovercraft myself, and even in that short time, I still managed to get covered in blood. I had no idea somebody as small as Spirit could have that much blood in her. As soon as we got into the hovercraft, they took her away. She could be dead by now, shipped back to District Seven and already buried in the ground. Gone.

Brutus won't tell me anything. I can't decide whether that's because it's bad news or because he just enjoys messing with my head. But today is the ceremony, where they show the finished Games tape, and all the victors will be there. If Spirit's alive, I'll know for sure today.

My prep team comes up, along with my stylist, Dido. Dido is holding a black suit in a plastic bag and grinning fit to burst. At the sight of me, my prep team goes berserk, hugging me and kissing my cheeks and basically invading my personal space. Brutus, who's come in behind them, rolls his eyes.

"After your interview prep, I've arranged a meeting with Lief Holbrook," he says.

Great. Lief. The guy's a parasite. But I guess if it comes down to talking to him or either of the people from District Twelve, I'd definitely rather talk to him. And he's Spirit's district partner. He probably knows something about her.

As long as Brutus is here, I might as well have a shot at the question again. "Is Spirit all right?"

Brutus won't look at me. "I'm not authorized to tell you that."

I'm about two seconds from trying to beat the answer out of him, but my shoulder still has stitches in it and Brutus is even bigger than I am. I'd end up with a busted jaw and no answer besides. I look away from him and let the prep team get to work.

The prep team has a field day with all the new scars I have. General protocol is to do a full body polish on new victors, but in District Two, scars are considered very important to a victor's image and Brutus wouldn't let them do it. People in District Two just don't trust unscarred victors. Scars mean you've been tested and you've proved yourself worthy. You can't put a price on that kind of respect.

Dido passes me the shirt and jacket - I'm already wearing the pants - and I put them on. I can tell something's off right away; the shirt is enormous. It hangs on me like a tent, better fitting for someone roughly the size and shape of a tank. "Dido, did you give me Brutus's suit by accident?"

Dido frowns, or tries to. She's had so much surgery on her face to make her look young that she can't really move her eyebrows any more. "No," she says. "I tailored this especially for you."

"Then why doesn't it fit?" I'm starting to get jumpy. This whole thing is weird. I'm a victor now. The world is my oyster. Shouldn't I at least be able to fit into my damn suit?

Suddenly, Dido's face clears. "I know what the problem is; I tailored this for you before you went into the arena. No wonder it's a little big! We'll just take the seams in and -"

I tune her out. What the hell was Dido doing? You don't make your victor's interview costume before they go into the Games. I mean, first of all, you don't know if they're actually going to, you know, _survive_, and second, everybody loses weight in the arena. How is something that was made for you before you spent three weeks in hell supposed to fit you after you come out the other side?

Dido takes the seams in as far as she can, but the suit still hangs on me. I look like I'm playing dress-up in Brutus's clothes.

The prep team yaps on and on about the Games. Mostly about me; they compliment my kills and my strategy and all that crap. It crosses my mind to pump them for information about Spirit, but what would they know? I see the Games sort of like an enormous maze, and the prep team is only on the outer edge of it. They don't know the half of what's going on inside. By the time they finally leave, I only have an hour left before I'm supposed to go onstage for the closing ceremonies. Lief isn't here yet, and rather than going back to the list of interview questions or staring at the wall, I turn on the TV.

It's Games coverage 24/7, doctors and commentators and psychologists going over the actions of every single tribute with a microscope. Back home in District Two, the Games and everything related to them are required viewing for the trainees in the battle school, but even the kids who won't ever volunteer are probably watching, too. It's every kid's dream to become a victor, even the kids whose parents are too poor to send them to battle school. Unless you demonstrate serious skills and get in on scholarship, it costs a lot of money to send a kid, and most kids end up as stonecutters. Even the ones who get into battle school sometimes drop out. It's not for everybody.

They show a lot of fan-made videos. One guy recorded the footage off his TV and then spliced it, making this video solely devoted to the weird faces I made during the Games. He managed to find three minutes worth of strange facial expressions, and the director of communications feels the need to play the stupid video every fifteen minutes. I don't think it's that funny, but every time Brutus sees it, he has to leave the room.

Then there are the official broadcasts. The Gamemakers feel obligated to show coverage of all the victors, but one of us is completely dominating the airwaves. It's not me. And it's not the happy couple from District Twelve, either. It's Spirit. In the past few days, I've probably seen the one shot a thousand times from just as many angles; Spirit kissing me, then whipping around to take out a mutt's throat with her clawed right hand. Nobody in the Capitol can seem to decide what to think of her.

Brutus bangs open the door again. "Turn that idiot box off. Lief Holbrook is here."

I glare at Brutus, pick up the remote, and turn up the volume, just to show him exactly what I think of him. Brutus shakes his head and moves aside, allowing Lief to edge past him into the room.

Lief looks normal. Not starving, not nervous, not stunned, none of the emotions you usually see on victors. He's completely untouched, like these last few weeks haven't happened for him. Then again, they probably haven't. The coward spent practically the whole Games hiding behind Spirit, letting her take the hits while he reaped the reward.

My hands curl into fists. Lief is almost the same height as I am, but he's thinner; I could break him easily. But Brutus is still here, just waiting for me to screw up, and plus, I probably shouldn't punch another victor.

I stare at Brutus. "Are you leaving or what?"

Brutus smirks at me. "Of course. Be in the lobby in half an hour. Do not be late."

He leaves, and then it's just me and Lief and the TV, blaring yet another story about Spirit's mutation obnoxiously loud.

Lief is the first to speak. "Jeez, Cato, you're in a bad mood."

"You'd be, too, if you were stuck down here with Brutus." Just the thought of my mentor makes we want to hit something.

"It's worse on my floor," Lief says. "Blight - that's my mentor - is always lurking around, stoned out of his mind, and the prep teams never shut up…Johanna's a good laugh, though. On the rare occasions when she actually talks to me."

"Johanna? She's still here?" Mentors go home when their tributes die. If Johanna's still here, that's a good sign.

"Well, yeah," Lief says. "Why wouldn't she be?"

The expression on my face must give it away, because Lief's mouth drops wide open. "You mean they didn't tell you? Spirit's alive. She's going to be fine!"

All the air comes rushing out of my lungs in a sigh of relief. She's okay. Brutus was just being an asshole, as usual. He wasn't trying to tell me she was dead. Spirit's going to be okay. She's alive and I'm going to see her soon. Suddenly, panic clutches at me. What the hell am I going to say to her?

"How's she doing?" I ask, because Lief is looking at me and smirking. I have the weird feeling that he knows what's going through my head and he thinks it's funny as hell.

"She's okay," Lief says, shrugging. "Starved, practically bled out on the operating table, but she's okay. The mutts crushed her hip and the doctors are having a bad time trying to fix it."

"They fixed Lover Boy's leg, didn't they?" Okay, they chopped it off, but really, it was pretty much a loss already. If they can give Lover Boy a new leg, why can't they help Spirit?

Lief sighs. "It's a different thing. The damage on Spirit's hip isn't bad enough to justify taking off the leg, but it's a big mess in there. Tons of muscles to reconnect."

"Oh."

"That's why the ceremonies are so late. The doctors keep trying to push the ceremonies back so they can fix her up, but the Gamemakers put their collective foot down, and then our stylist stuck her head in it and said there was no way she was putting her victor onstage in front of all of Panem in a wheelchair."

"Oh," I say again. "So they're giving her a cane or something?"

"Yeah. Elisheba's having a field day decorating the thing," Lief says.

And that's it. Lief and I are officially out of things to talk about. What I really want to know is if Spirit has asked about me, or even said anything at all. Can she even talk?

Lief looks at me, the smirk on his face getting even bigger. "Come on, Cato. Just spit it out. What are you trying to ask?"

"Has she said anything about me?" I finally say in a rush. I can feel myself turning red.

"Honestly, Cato, she's barely been awake at all for the past couple days," Lief says. "They wake her up to feed her and then they put her right back under again. I'm not sure whether it's for security reasons or because they need to do more surgeries on her, but she hasn't had time to say much."

My heart sinks. I guess it was stupid of me to think that Spirit would be worrying about me as much as I was worrying about her.

"Although," Lief says thoughtfully, "she did ask to see you yesterday."

I'm starting to see why Spirit always got so pissed off at Lief. He's annoying. I decide I'd better drop the whole issue of Spirit and find a new topic. Or better yet, just find somewhere else to be until it's time to go downstairs for the closing ceremonies. I've selected my chosen escape route and I'm already opening my mouth to make the excuse when the door bangs open.

Lief jumps out of his skin and my hand flies to my belt, grabbing for a sword that's no longer there. But it's no one to worry about. Just the drunk mentor from District Twelve, escorting one half of Panem's most famous couple into the room.

"What are you doing here?" I snap at Katniss Everdeen. She can shoot arrows and her face doesn't look like someone stuck a dead rat to it, big deal. She's still from Twelve. She should not be on my floor.

"Waiting," her mentor answers brusquely.

Katniss looks around the room and shrinks away. "Where's Peeta?"

"They want to air your reunion live at the closing," her mentor answers. "You'll see him soon."

He looks to Lief and I. "We'll be back to get you lot in a few minutes. In the mean time, play nice."

He leaves - or tries to, walking straight into the doorjamb and bouncing off. Giving his head a little shake, he rights himself and gets going again, this time getting through the door. There's a long silence after he leaves.

"Well," Lief says finally. "This is awkward."

Damn right. Katniss is still standing by the door like a deer in the headlights. Lief and I are standing five feet away from each other, trying not to breathe each other's air. Spirit and Peeta are the sociable ones, and neither of them are here. So that leaves us, three people who've spent the last few weeks trying to kill each other.

Katniss is the first to open her mouth. "Have either of you seen Peeta?"

"Not since the doctors dragged off his stinking carcass." For want of anything better to do, I aim a kick at one of the couches.

"I saw him," Lief says. "He looks fine."

Katniss smiles at him, but she looks like she's about to faint. Or puke. "I saw Nails when I was down in the Remake Center."

"Who the hell is Nails?"

"Peeta couldn't remember your district partner's name," Katniss says to Lief, shooting a nervous look in my direction. "He just called her Nails instead. You know, 'tough as nails'. Like that."

Capitol attendants show up with our mentors in tow. The only mentor missing is Johanna Mason, but she's probably with Spirit. Lief's mentor looks drunk; Katniss's mentor looks hungover; my mentor just looks bored out of his mind. He's been through this a million times with other, more impressive victors. At least his other victors managed to eliminate all their competition.

They put us under the stage outside the Training Center, leading Lief and Katniss off to different areas. The place they put me in smells like sawdust, and I can't stop sneezing.

"Wipe your nose," Brutus orders. "And try to hold it together up there. I won't allow you to embarrass District Two any more than you already have."

"Screw you," I mumble, and sneeze again.

The anthem plays, and Caesar Flickerman begins announcing the names of this year's victors. I hear the announcement of District Twelve's victors, which is followed by high-pitched shrieking from all around me. The stage must be surrounded by fans. They never show the adoring Capitol crowds on the day of the ceremony; just the victor, alone in their chair on the stage.

Now it's my turn. "From District Two, Cato Lewis!"

I step onto my metal plate and rise up, blinking in the bright lights, trying not to blow snot everywhere. Caesar comes over and shakes my hand. His mouth moves and I guess he's congratulating me, but I can't hear him over the roar of the crowd. People are cheering for me. They're chanting my name. This crazy feeling of pride comes over me. I did this. I always knew I could, and now I have.

Caesar waves his arms, trying to get the crowd to stop yelling, and finally they quiet down enough for him to make his final announcement. "And last, but certainly not least, I give you the tributes from District Seven; Lief Holbrook and Spirit Emerson!"

The crowd is unnaturally quiet as Lief and Spirit rise from the stage. Unlike the rest of us, who've been reasonably patched up, Spirit still looks like a wreck. She's ghost white and her eyes are huge in her face. The crooks of both her arms are bandaged. In her left hand she holds a staff wound with twisted threads of silver, and as she steps forward off her plate, I can see that she walks with a limp.

Spirit sees me and starts toward me, the limp more obvious as she tries to move faster. I meet her halfway across the space between us and wrap my arms around her, and finally the crowd reacts, letting out a huge roar of approval. Apparently there are people who like us.

"It's okay. We're okay." I can't stop saying it. Go ahead, call me stupid, but until I saw Spirit on the stage, I wasn't entirely convinced that our escape from the arena had actually happened.

Spirit's voice is kind of muffled by my shoulder. "I told you."

Caesar comes over to congratulate Spirit and Lief, and I notice that even with her staff, Spirit is awfully unsteady on her feet. And she keeps yawning behind her hand. I think she's almost relieved when Caesar leaves to go break up District Twelve's make-out session.

"They woke me up about five minutes ago," Spirit tells me when I ask her if she's all right. "Did all my prep while I was asleep."

"Lucky you."

"Are you kidding? I was scared out of my mind," she says. "You try waking up to a bunch of brightly colored lunatics hovering over you."

Caesar returns to us, having successfully separated Katniss and Lover Boy. "Shall we start the show?"

He takes Spirit's arm, probably to help her over to the couch they've set up for us, but he hooks his hand right over one of the bandages and she flinches, letting out a little hiss of pain. Caesar lets go instantly. "Are you all right?"

Spirit smiles thinly. "Fine."

I step up to her side and offer her my arm to use as a support. I saw it in one of the old movies they have at the school back home. Lief has the same idea. "We've got it."

Ordinarily, the victor watches the Games tape from a throne, but since there are five of us this year, they've had to make adjustments. The couch is pretty big, but District Twelve still manages to take up half of it, cuddling and being gross. Lief, Spirit, and I have to squeeze into the remaining space, and since there's no way I'm sitting by Lover Boy, I quickly claim the free end. Spirit sits next to me and Lief sits on her other side, closest to District Twelve. I can tell he thinks they're as disgusting as I do because he starts scooting away from them right away.

I put my arm around Spirit and she leans her head against my shoulder. The lights in the City Circle go down and the movie plays.

They open with the reapings. It's weird to watch myself charge out of the crowd to volunteer, looking cocky as hell. The reaping in District Seven is mostly uneventful, except that when Lief's name is called, he bolts out of the crowd, shakes their escort's hand, and then gives Spirit a huge hug. I have a hard time not laughing at the disgusted look on her face.

Lief turns to Spirit. "Hey, Spirit, how about a hug?"

Spirit picks up the staff from where it's lying across her lap and points it at him. "Watch it."

Training scores. Interviews. They show stills of all of us, but the only live-action clips they include are ones from Spirit and Lover Boy's interviews. I guess they are the only ones who said anything interesting. When Spirit declares that she's going to win, a big group of people in the crowd start cheering, but they're drowned out when Lover Boy says his piece about Katniss.

Lief rolls his eyes. "I don't get it."

"Me neither."

Spirit yawns again. "That makes three of us."

The shots of the actual Games begin with a view from a tribute's perspective as they rise from the ground. It's only when the chosen tribute blows past the competition and reaches the Cornucopia first that I realize it's Spirit. Then the camera pans to a wide view of the plain, zooming down on individual groups of fighters every time someone dies. They show all my kills in detail. I always thought I'd be one of those victors who started cheering whenever they showed one of their kills, but I just watch. I can't believe that's really me cutting that person's throat and laughing like a psycho.

To be fair, they show almost everybody in our alliance like that; me and Clove and Marvel and Glimmer. Spirit and Lief are the only ones who don't get that treatment. In Lief's case, they can't, because he didn't kill anyone in the bloodbath, and Spirit's two kills come while she's protecting me. The only time in the first twenty-four hours of the Games when I don't look like an asshole is when I catch Spirit as she falls out of a tree. And even then, it looks like an accident.

They switch off between shots of Katniss Everdeen and shots of our alliance for the next few minutes. Then there's the tracker jacker episode; and then it changes abruptly from Katniss twitching around on the forest floor to Spirit, prying a stinger out of my face while pus and blood sprays everywhere.

"Ugh," Lief says. "I get sick just watching that."

He's not the only one. Katniss looks a little green, too.

They show Spirit taking care of the various members of the alliance for awhile, and then the Gamemakers send coyotes to scare her away from us. People in the audience actually start booing the coyotes when they show up. It turns out that Spirit downplayed the fight with the coyotes; it's bloody and lightning-fast, looking like a preview of the mutt fight that's coming. When one of the coyotes sinks its teeth into Spirit's arm, Lief swears loudly. "Was that when -"

"Yeah. Pipe down, Lief, people are trying to watch," Spirit says, hushing him.

It's while Spirit is cauterizing her own wound that I figure out what the Gamemakers are doing with the way they're cutting the footage. They're trying to set us all up for the final confrontation, to make it look like they knew what we were going to do from the beginning. The reason they focused so long on Spirit, her strength and determination and especially her fight with the coyotes, is so they can pretend they knew she was a mutant all along.

But the rest of us end up looking odd. Lief is mostly spastic, with occasional flashes of purpose, while I look like a dangerous, unstable creep in every interaction except the ones I have with Spirit. Katniss is sometimes lethal - so it _was _her who blew up our supplies and killed Marvel - but mostly pathetic. Lover Boy is mostly pathetic.

I glance over at him. He's stroking Katniss's hair and grinning like he's king of the world. Pathetic. Yeah, so what else is new?

After the Gamemakers announce the rule change, there's a long and pretty boring bit where Katniss and Lover Boy hang out in a cave, kissing and talking. Spirit and I meet up in the woods and she runs away. After that scene, they cut straight to the feast.

Spirit looks puzzled. "Huh. I wonder why they didn't show -"

"Shh," Lief says. Onscreen, Clove has just run toward the Cornucopia, and his eyes are glued to the screen. I don't like seeing how Clove died, but knowing that Thresh gets what's coming to him makes it easier. They show Lief saying goodbye to her, and the camera doesn't leave her body until they lift her into the hovercraft.

Spirit nudges Lief with her shoulder. "She's okay now. You know that."

Lief nods, but I don't think he believes her.

For the next ten minutes, the camera stays on Lief, Spirit, and I. When Lief kills Thresh, people in the audience cheer, and Katniss shoots an angry look at Lief, like the way they're acting is his fault. Spirit's eyes are closed. I think she's asleep. She stays asleep right through the end of the Games tape, and we have to shake her awake for the presentation of the victor's laurels. She's still pretty wobbly, but when President Snow places the crown on her head, she stands up straight and lifts her staff in a salute, getting a huge cheer from the audience. The smile that President Snow gives her looks forced.

Then it's off to the party at the president's mansion. On the way there, I hear Spirit's mentor and a couple doctors arguing loudly with one of the Gamemakers. Something about more surgery and not ready and needs rest. The Gamemaker shoots back with 'her presence is required'. Spirit's mentor loses the argument, and so we end up waking Spirit up again because she has to go to the party. I try to stay close to her, but she gets stopped by a couple of crazies who've had surgery done on their hands to make them look like her claws. Then the crowd gets between us and I lose sight of her. I haven't had time to talk to her at all. And I still haven't given back her ring.

People shake my hand, ask for autographs, follow me everywhere. District Twelve is getting the worst of it, though; everybody wants to see them. They're stuck in one corner of the ballroom, surrounded by photographers and drunken Capitol officials.

Four hours into the party, and I'm hiding in a dark corner with a bunch of sleepy drunks. These guys are so boozed up that they don't recognize me, which suits me just fine. I just need a break.

Lief runs up to me, looking panicked. "Where's Spirit?"

"I don't know. The last time I saw her was at the beginning of the party." Something occurs to me, and I say, "When was the last time you saw her?"

"The beginning of the party!"

Someone like Spirit can't just go missing. She can't have left the president's mansion. I remember in the arena, toward the end, when she was so sick she couldn't keep her eyes open, and I shiver. But that's over now. The doctors fixed it. Didn't they?

"I'll take that side, you take this one," Lief directs. "We have to find her."

We split up and move through the darkened ballroom, searching for her. I walk past a woman who's sitting against the wall, her head tilted to one side. She has short dark hair, and I assume it's just another person who's dressed up like Spirit, drunk into a stupor. Then I see the bandages wrapped around her arms and the staff lying discarded beside her, and I know it's not an imitator. It's her.

"Spirit!" I get down on my knees next to her and feel clumsily for a pulse. I can't find one, so I take a deep breath to try and calm down and check the other side. Nothing. I check her neck, hoping. She has a pulse, but it's weak. And it's really slow.

I pick her up in my arms. "Don't you do this to me," I tell her. "Everything's supposed to be okay now."

Then I shove my way through the crowd, searching for help.


	2. Lights

A/N: Thanks to Teleryn, Appaloosa13, and Guest for reviewing.

* * *

Spirit:

I wake up strapped to a bed. I'm no longer wearing my ceremony outfit; just the same white hospital gown that's been my attire for much of the past week. My arms are once again covered with IVs, but I'm not in the operating theater they've been using. Instead I'm in a small, shaking room, and there are people all around me.

"I told you she wasn't ready!" That's Johanna's voice. I crane my neck and finally catch a glimpse of her; she's wedged into a corner behind me and to the left. One of the IV stands is leaning against her shoulder. "You are such idiots! She could have died back there!"

"Jeez, Johanna, give it a rest," someone else says. "I agreed with you, remember? The only person who didn't was that stupid Gamemaker, and he's not here."

"Goddamn Gamemaker," Johanna mutters. "Just couldn't let it drop, could he?"

"Let what drop?" I ask, and I start to sit up. Someone supports my shoulders while they slide a couple pillows behind my head. Finally, I get a good look at my surroundings.

I'm in an ambulance, but it doesn't seem to be moving very fast, and there's a lot of noise coming from outside. War whoops, drunken shouting, the occasional explosion. Inside the ambulance, my bed is taking up most of the space. I blink a couple times and the people crowded around the edges come into focus; Lief, Johanna, Blight, Maia, Elisheba, and both Lief's and my prep teams. There's also a blue-robed Capitol paramedic standing over me.

"What happened?" I ask. There's a foul, sickly sweet taste in my mouth, and something syrupy covering my tongue. My head is pounding. It's what I imagine a hangover would feel like; except I know I didn't drink anything at the party.

"You passed out, loveless," Johanna snaps. Now that I'm awake, she doesn't have to worry any longer, and she can get right on with being irritated. "What is wrong with you? Can't you just stay awake like a normal person?"

The paramedic looks appalled. Clearly, she hasn't spent much time around Johanna. She puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, Miss Emerson. You had a little fainting spell, but we're bringing you back to the Remake Center. The doctors will take good care of you."

I shake my head. "No. I'm not going back under anesthesia."

The paramedic smiles beatifically. "I'm sure the doctors will take care of everything. Does anything hurt, Miss Emerson?"

"My head."

The paramedic turns around, opening up a cabinet and pulling out a small packet. She turns the packet over, trying to empty it into her palm, but nothing comes out. She turns around and bestows an awful glare on the occupants of the ambulance. "Which one of you took my morphling?"

Everyone in the ambulance, including Johanna, looks at Blight. He doesn't seem any more intoxicated than usual, but maybe he's just hoarding the pills to eat later. The paramedic shoves her way around my bed until she's standing over Blight. She holds out her hand. "Give them back now."

Blight stares defiantly at her for a minute, but then Maia grinds her stiletto heel into his foot and he begins pulling morphling tablets out of all sorts of unlikely places, such as the cuffs of his suit jacket and his nostrils. When he tries to hand the latter pills back to her, the paramedic shakes her head. "No. I can't use those. Do you have any idea how unsanitary -"

Blight shrugs. "Fine. More for me." And he proceeds to gulp them down.

"Missed your chance," Johanna tells the paramedic. "You could have taken them back, and then we all would've gotten to watch him go into withdrawal."

The paramedic looks at Johanna as though she's dropped out of the sky. Then she shakes her head, deciding that she must have misheard, and thumps the side of the ambulance. "Can't this thing go any faster?"

"It's the street parties," someone, presumably the driver, calls back. "They're everywhere, and it's taking forever for them to clear."

The paramedic turns back to me and holds out the pills. "Here. For your head."

"I don't want it." Up north, people talk about morphling the way they talk about the Capitol laboratories; with a mixture of fear and disgust. When it comes to pain, the northerner way is to handle it naturally, with no medicine. If it gets too horrible, someone can always knock you out. We have small supplies of morphling, stolen from dead Peacekeepers, but we never use it. Morphling separates you from reality - and to survive in the north, you have to keep your head in the game.

The paramedic lets out a small, huffy sigh, which must be the Capitol equivalent of telling someone to go to hell, and replaces the pills in their packet. "All right. Try to rest, Miss Emerson. We'll be back to the Remake Center -" here she pauses and shoots a filthy look at the driver "- soon."

Lief edges past the paramedic and sits down beside me. "It's about three in the morning," he tells me, knowing that I want information and I'm not likely to get it out of anyone else. "It was about four hours into the party, and everybody was drunk."

"Everybody?"

"Yeah, they were all acting like Blight," Lief says with a smirk. "So, anyway, I'd lost track of you, but I assumed you were with Cato. But then I found out that he'd gotten separated from you really early on, and we went looking for you. What do you remember?"

I put a hand to my aching head and find a large, swollen lump on my temple. I recall hitting my head on something - my staff, I think - and collapsing in the middle of the dance floor. Somebody carried me off, but they didn't know who I was or what was wrong with me, so they just leaned me up against the wall and told me to take a breather. After that I don't remember anything. "I must have fallen asleep," I say out loud.

"I guess," Lief says, having seen the whole event inside my mind. "When Cato found you, he couldn't get a pulse on either of your arms. You were shutting off. I guess we're going to have to be careful with you from now on."

"Don't bother," I mutter. "I'll throw myself off the roof of the Training Center before I let anyone treat me like a china doll."

_Even if you did, you wouldn't be the first District Seven victor to try and off yourself_, Lief tells me. _Blight and Johanna have both tried_.

That doesn't surprise me much. Everyone knows that Johanna and Blight are a couple of messes. In fact, I have a hard time thinking of a victor from any district who hasn't suffered long-term damage as a result of their time in the arena. Except for the victors from District Two. "What happened to Cato?"

"He wanted to come along, but his mentor wouldn't let him, and then they had a big fight on the front lawn," Lief says. "It was kind of scary. But anyway, he wouldn't have been able to even if Brutus had said yes. There wasn't room in the ambulance. Did you want to see him?"

"You know I do."

These past few days have been an anesthesia-induced fog, and the few lucid moments I've had are marked by the shadow of the Capitol. The first time I really woke up, President Snow was there, and every time I've opened my eyes since, there have been Peacekeepers somewhere in the offing. They're keeping a close watch on me. Despite his certainty that I'm no threat, the president must want me contained all the same.

I've wanted to see Cato, and one of the times I was awake, I asked about him. Thinking back, it was the wrong thing to do, because the nurse in charge immediately knocked me out again. Cato was happy to see me at the ceremony, but whatever it is we had in the arena is in doubt now. I'm a mutant. He's from District Two. Even if we really are in love - as Lief, who can read both our minds, insists - I can't see anything working out between us.

_So what? You're going to see him and try to let him down gently? _Lief says. _You know you won't. You're an optimist at heart_.

I flip over onto my stomach and bury my face in the pillows. _Just kill me now_.

It's nearly four in the morning by the time we make it back to the Training Center, and I can barely keep my eyes open. Even so, when the orderlies drag me out of the ambulance and start tapping my arm for a vein to put the IV in, I start to fight. I actually make it off the gurney, but I forgot about my leg, and I get three steps on pure momentum before it gives out and sends me crashing to the tile floor of the lobby.

The orderlies scoop me off the floor and dump me back on the gurney, but I bite one of them and he drops me. This time I crawl toward the elevators, dragging myself on my elbows. They're not going to put me under anesthesia again. I won't let them.

"Spirit, cut it out," Lief says. He kneels down next to me. "This isn't helping."

I flip onto my side. "You don't get it, do you?"

Lief opens his mouth to respond, but before he can get the words out, one of the orderlies picks me up, throws me over his shoulder, and puts me on the gurney, holding me down while the others secure my arms and legs.

Johanna appears over the shoulder of the orderly pinning me. "I'm not kidding, loveless. They have a lot of work to do before your interviews this afternoon. Got to put this big broken mess back together." She gives my injured leg a few jabs with her finger. "Just let them fix you up, okay? I don't want to spend the rest of my life pushing you around in a wheelchair."

I grab her arm as she walks away. "Wake me up before the interviews, okay? I don't want them doing the same thing they did today -"

"Yeah, sure, whatever, loveless," Johanna says impatiently, brushing me off. "I'll make sure you're up. Now go to sleep like a good little lab rat."

_Lab rat? _But before I can say or do anything, I feel the needle stab into my arm, and everything starts to float. I try to keep my eyes open, but I can't, and then everything is gone. It's a feeling I'm starting to get used to.

The next time I'm lucid, I find myself back in my room on the seventh floor. There are electrodes on my chest and the constant beeping of a heart monitor from behind me. My room's been mostly stripped; all the chairs are gone, replaced with medical supplies, and the closet hangs open. My right leg feels stiff, and when I shift the hospital gown aside, I see that my hip is covered in bandages.

I twist onto my other side and check the clock. Eleven-thirty. The interviews are set to go at one. Johanna, to my surprise, actually kept her promise.

The door cracks open and Elisheba enters. "Hello, Spirit. How are you feeling?"

I sit up. "Like hell."

"That's to be expected." Elisheba sidles past a table covered in sharp metal instruments and sits down at the end of my bed. She's carrying a garment bag. "I brought your interview dress. We have just enough time for you to get ready."

"Where's the prep team?"

"I thought I'd give you a break from them," Elisheba says. "They were a little too excitable last time. It's been years since we had a victor."

I can't remember anything from yesterday's prep. That's probably a good thing.

Apparently, I'm under strict instructions from the doctors not to walk or put any weight on my leg, which is going to present a problem - I have to get into my interview dress, and if I can't stand up, it'll be hard going. Elisheba eyeballs me, then looks at the dress, and decides to work on my makeup and hair first.

"You know," she says, combing my hair out of my face, "everyone was very impressed with your performance in the Games."

"Really?"

"I suppose you haven't had time to watch the coverage," Elisheba says.

I try not to laugh. I've been conscious for a grand total of six hours in the entire past week, so no, I haven't had time to watch the post-op on the Games. "I haven't."

"We've never seen anything like it," Elisheba says. "Close your eyes, Spirit." She brushes something onto my eyelids with a steady hand. "We've never seen anything like you."

I open my eyes. Elisheba is watching me carefully, the way I would watch an ice wolf feeding; not exactly frightened, but definitely wary, and suddenly a lot of things make sense. "Are you guys scared of me?"

Maybe that's why they're keeping me so sedated. And maybe that's why the prep teams aren't here. Mutants are the ultimate nightmare for people in the Capitol, the monster in the dark that's always waiting and watching. It must be a new experience for the Capitol citizens to be afraid of the victor, instead of the other way around.

So why is Elisheba still here?

"You know, I used to be a Peacekeeper," Elisheba tells me. "Stationed on the northern border. I've seen mutants before. I'm not afraid."

Elisheba, a Peacekeeper? I can't see it. But then I think back to her, how she's so different than the other stylists, how the costumes she designs for me always seem dangerous. "How did you become a Peacekeeper?"

"My parents ran my family deep into debt," Elisheba tells me as she slicks my hair back and puts in a clip with white feathers. "By the time I was fifteen, both of them were dead, and they stuck me with the bill. I joined the Peacekeepers to repay it."

"For twenty years?" That's the usual Peacekeeper deployment. I count back, trying to figure out if Elisheba was in service on the border long enough to kill anyone I knew - namely, my father. "How old are you?"

"Spirit," Elisheba chides, "you're not supposed to ask that. I'm fifty-eight."

"You don't look it."

"That would be the surgery," Elisheba says simply. "You'll age much better."

If I age at all. The immediate threats of the arena and radiation sickness are gone, but as last night's episode illustrated rather well, I'm not completely cured. And now there's this business with my hip. Elisheba tries to explain it to me, fails, and then calls a doctor in.

I can tell right away that this doctor is scared. He stays close to the door, ready to bolt at any second, and he calls out a series of exercises for me to do. Extend my leg, lift it up and down, rotate it, and finally, he declares that the joint has been mostly repaired.

"You'll require physical therapy for some time, but we can administer that as outpatient care back in your district," he says, avoiding my eyes. "You'll have a slight limp for the rest of your life, but that can't be helped. Cybernetics are no substitute for flesh and bone."

"Thank you," I say, and he flinches back as though I've taken a swipe at him. I'd better get used to it; few people in the Capitol have Elisheba's courage.

He leaves. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. So that's what they did; implanted a new hip, made out of metal, and wrapped the muscles back around it. I suppose I should consider myself lucky; I could have lost my whole leg, like Peeta Mellark. But at least he'll be able to function normally, walk like a normal person, whereas I'll be crippled for the rest of my life.

"Does everybody know?" I ask Elisheba.

"Yes, they explained it to us this morning, before you woke up. I hope you have a good grasp of how it works; Caesar will definitely ask you about it during your interview."

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out this whole day. It's not enough for me to survive the Hunger Games. I had to face off against President Snow during my first waking moment since getting out of the arena, and then I have to absorb the news that I have a cybernetic hip - and as if that's not enough, now I have to go on live television and carry on my first real conversation with the boy I fell in love with during the Games. It's too much.

Back in the north, while I was training for my infiltration, I always viewed the Games themselves as the biggest obstacle. It's only now that I realize that the Games were the easy part.

Elisheba makes a clucking sound with her tongue. "One thing at a time, Spirit. First, let's get you into this dress."

She goes out into the hall and finds a chair for me to lean against so I can keep the weight off my leg. Then she has me hang on with one hand while she slides the dress over my head, and steadies me while I switch hands to get my other arm through.

"Hold onto me," she says, offering me her arm and helping me hop over to the mirror. "You should at least see what you look like before the rest of Panem does."

No more gray for me; this time, I'm dressed in jet black satin. I'm strapless again, the bandages on the crooks of my arms clearly visible, the scar on my chest displayed for all to see. My skin looks so white against the dark fabric, and the heavy liner on my eyes gives off a frightening impression. The white feathers stand out against my hair. I don't look beautiful, exactly. I look like someone people would think twice about crossing.

Elisheba nods approvingly at my reflection. "Cinna, the stylist from Twelve, is going with the little-girl look for Katniss, and I suppose he has his reasons. But I don't think that's right for you. You need to look like the person you are."

"And that person is?"

"A victor, of course."

Elisheba sits me down on the bed and wraps more black fabric over the bandages on my arms. Then she straps stiletto heels onto my feet. "These are just for appearances," she tells me when I start to object. "You won't be walking in them."

Johanna appears in the doorway, pushing a wheelchair. "Come on, loveless, let's go," she says, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else. "Everyone else is already downstairs."

The interviews are being held in the lobby of the Training Center. Usually, they're held on the victor's floor, but this year, there are three victor districts, and no one could agree on which floor to have the interviews. According to Lief, who listened in on the argument, Johanna, Blight, and the mentor from Twelve joined forces to try and browbeat Cato's mentor into submission. I suppose it worked; they managed to yell him out of his insistence that the interviews be held on the second floor.

Elisheba helps me into the wheelchair and wishes me good luck on my interview. Then Johanna begins pushing the chair, down the hall and into the elevator, the trip going by in aggrieved silence.

When the elevator doors open onto the lobby, the first thing I see is the spray of bright flowers surrounding the couch where we'll sit during the interview. Next I see Lief, back in his medic school outfit, his shaggy hair combed out of his face, talking to Katniss and Peeta. Cato stands slightly off to one side, part of the group but not the conversation.

"Why don't you go see him?" Johanna says. "Oh, right. You can't."

I twist around in the wheelchair and glare at her. "Look, I don't like this any more than you do."

"Yeah, loveless, I know," Johanna says. "Now, if you'll excuse me -" she edges around my wheelchair and out the open doors "- I have an interview to supervise."

She gets five feet away, walking purposefully slow, by the time I swallow my pride. "Can you help me?"

Johanna turns around, hands on her hips and a big smirk on her face. "Say please, loveless."

I grit my teeth. I'd be pushing myself, except every time I make a movement, the crooks of my arms start bleeding again. "Please."

Johanna comes back into the elevator and pushes my wheelchair out into the lobby. "You know, loveless, if I have to push you around all the time, this is going to get old real fast."

"Tell me about it."

At the sound of wheels on the tile floor, Cato looks up, a smile crossing his face as he sees me. He comes over, his smile fading to concern. "Did your leg get hurt last night?"

"No, I just had more surgery. On my hip," I say. "They won't let me walk. Something about 'the connective tissues not being able to bear my weight'."

"Otherwise known as, you take a step, you fall on your ass," Johanna puts in. "Quit whining. I'm as sick of it as you are."

"Yeah, but I have to live with it and you don't, old bag," I hiss out of the side of my mouth at her. Cato's eyebrows are traveling farther and farther up his forehead.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, loveless," Johanna says, rolling her eyes. "Go be charming."

She walks away, leaving my wheelchair ten feet away from the victor's couch, and leans up against the wall, watching me to see what I'll do. I eyeball the distance, wondering if I can get the chair over there. I decide against it; the bandages on my arms are already pretty soaked, and I'll have blood all down my arms if I try. I glance back at Johanna. She's smirking again.

"I'll drag myself there," I threaten.

"By all means, loveless. But you'll ruin your dress, and Elisheba will have your head."

"I've got it," Cato says. He gets behind the wheelchair and pushes it the last few feet to the victors' couch. Then, when he sees that I can't make the transfer between the two, he lifts me out of the chair and sets me down on the couch, sitting beside me. "You're so light. Are you eating anything at all, Spirit?"

"Of course I am." Actually, I'm having a hard time remembering my last meal. I think it was the day before the closing ceremony; the day of, they woke me up too late for me to have time to eat anything. "What about you? Are you all right?"

He shrugs. "I'm fine. I just think this whole interview is stupid. They already know everything about us."

"I know. I wish it would just end already."

Cato awkwardly takes my hand, folding his fingers through mine. "It'll be over soon. Then we can all go home."

Home. By home he means our respective districts, but when I hear the word home, I think of a place far away from Panem. And then I realize that Cato's words, while true for the rest of the victors, are a lie for Lief and I. For the two of us, it isn't over. It won't be over until the Capitol has fallen. And until that happens, we can't go home.

I nod. "I hope so."

Lief comes over and sits down on my other side, recreating our arrangement from the closing ceremony. "Hey, Spirit. Doing okay?"

"Fine."

He squints at my feet. "Would you mind telling me what the point of those shoes is? It's not like you're going to be walking anywhere."

"They're concealed weapons. For stabbing my annoying district partner."

"Ha ha. Funny. No, really. What's with the shoes?"

"According to Elisheba, it's appearances."

"Okay."

"You look good," Cato says. Then, in a lower voice, he adds, "Better than Katniss, anyway."

Lief glances over. "She does look sort of like a giant cupcake."

Cato smirks. "Maybe Lover Boy goes for that kind of thing. He is a baker, after all."

Lief and I both start laughing. Then I calm myself down. Katniss and Peeta are going to be at the forefront of a rebellion in a little less than a year; the last thing they need is us snickering at them from the sidelines.

Katniss and Peeta make their way over to the couch and sit down. Then Caesar sits down across from us, someone counts backwards from ten, and the lights on the surrounding cameras go on. We're live to all of Panem, and up north, I'm sure my people are listening in.

Caesar aims most of his first series of questions at Lief and Peeta, and I can see why; Cato has all the animation of a stone block, Katniss looks like she's about to pass out, and between my mutant nature and the way Elisheba dressed me up, my intimidation factor is way over the edge. Lief and Peeta do pretty well talking about their feelings, and Caesar gets a nice long answer out of Peeta about the moments before the Games began. Then Caesar takes a deep breath, as though he's steeling himself, and turns to me.

"Spirit, you were very dynamic during the bloodbath. What was going through your head during those first couple seconds?"

I focus in on Caesar's face. "It was very intense. I didn't want to get stuck between Thresh and the boy from District Eight, so I just ran. I wasn't really planning much beyond getting out of their way."

"So would you say killing the boy from District Eight was an impulsive move?" Caesar asks. I can see him getting over his nervousness around me, and now he's just hunting for the answer. "But it wasn't your life in danger, was it?"

He wants me to mention Cato in my response, and my brain is too scrambled for me to think of a way around it. "I think it was partly an impulse," I say carefully, trying to pick my way through the minefield of this answer. But than I can't think of anything else to say and I have to leave it at that.

Instead of pressing me for a more thorough answer, Caesar turns to Cato. "And what did you think when you saw that hammer fly past your head?"

"I thought she was trying to kill me," Cato says. "And when I realized what she was really doing, I was surprised, I guess. Spirit is smart. If she had a chance to take me out, I expected her to do it. It was kind of a shock that she didn't."

Caesar moves on, and eventually gets around to asking District Twelve about their love story. "Well, Peeta, we know, from our days in the cave, that it was love at first sight for you from what, age five?"

"From the moment I laid eyes on her," Peeta confirms.

"But, Katniss, what a ride for you," Caesar says, turning toward the girl on fire. "I think the real excitement for the audience was watching you fall for him. When did you realize you were in love with him?"

"Oh, that's a hard one…" Katniss trails off and looks away.

Lief glances back at me. _Something is foul in District Twelve_, he says.

_Not now_. It's just occurred to me that I might end up having to field a question like that, and I'm trying to come up with an answer that won't come out tangled.

Caesar walks Katniss through her response - which ends up being pretty convincing, even though I'm fairly sure she's making it up off the top of her head - and goes from there into the various injuries we all received in the arena. He compliments my skill as a medic and asks me about my hip. I gabble out something about cybernetics and physical therapy and "almost as good as new", and he leaves me alone. Katniss has a minor meltdown when she learns that Peeta now has a prosthetic leg, and while she's calming down from that, Caesar turns back to our end of the couch.

"Spirit, Cato, you two were at the center of some of the most dramatic moments I've ever seen in a Hunger Games," Caesar says. "Would either of you care to speak to that?"

Yes, Cato and I spent most of the Games in the middle of the action; the bloodbath, the fire, the tracker jackers, the coyotes, Thresh, the vines, the mutts. But somehow I don't think that's what he's referring to. He means us. Our relationship, such as it is. An intense feeling of disgust for this whole process, for the Capitol, rises up within me. I barely know how I feel about us, and I don't think Cato does, either. We shouldn't have to try and figure it out for all of Panem to see.

I sneak a glance sideways at Cato and find that his expression is stony. "When you say dramatic," he says coldly to Caesar, "what do you mean?"

Caesar seems taken aback. He's supposed to be the one asking the questions. "I mean exciting, of course."

"Well," Cato says. "Then I'd have to say that the most exciting moment of the Games for me was when Spirit fought off the mutts." His fingers tighten around mine. "It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

That obviously wasn't the answer Caesar was looking for, but he forges on all the same. "Spirit, would you agree with that?"

"I was looking at it a bit differently," I say, and on my other side, Lief lets out a snort of laughter. I ignore him. "There were lots of things I was impressed with during the Games."

I leave it at that. Caesar looks from me, to Cato, then back again, and he must realize that he's not getting anything more out of us. He gives us one of his ubiquitous smiles, then turns back to Katniss and Peeta. At least he can count on them for answers.

He runs Katniss through the metaphorical gauntlet about her choice to pull out the berries and include all the remaining tributes in a suicide pact. Lief watches her intently as she stumbles through a sentence about her actions. "I don't know, I just…couldn't bear the thought of…being without him…and it wouldn't work unless we all did it."

Lief nods as if in understanding, but really, he's glad that the fabrication he planted in Katniss's head is still in place. I didn't realize until a few days ago that he mind-warped Katniss into using the berries, but the idea must have been in the back of her mind the whole time; mind-warps don't work unless the foundation has already been laid.

Caesar poses a final question to Peeta, letting District Twelve's golden boy wrap up the interview, and then he signs off. Just like that, the interview is over, and in a few short minutes, Lief and I will be going back to District Seven. Suddenly, I'm grateful that I didn't have to do this alone. Living in an unfamiliar place will be hard. At least I'll have Lief with me.

Most of my fellow victors get up and move, Katniss running to her mentor, Peeta trailing after her, Lief stretching and walking away. Cato stays beside me, and we sit hand in hand until all the lights on the cameras go off.


	3. Homeward

A/N: Thanks to Appaloosa13, Mocking Verse, and RoseMaple (x 2) for the reviews.

* * *

Cato:

The interviews are over. The last part of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games is finished, and now I'll be going home to District Two. But not to the tract house I grew up in; to the Victor's Village. For the first time since the Games begin, I let myself think about my family. My mother, my father, my half-brother Crow and my younger sister Aurelia. I never said real goodbyes to them, sure as I was that coming home as the victor was a foregone conclusion. It'll be good to see them again.

District Twelve is led off to their floor to collect personal belongings from their rooms, but a Gamemaker who was supervising the interviews beckons the District Seven crew over to join Brutus and I. This time it's Lief pushing Spirit's wheelchair, not her crabby mentor.

"Due to the close proximity of your districts, you will be traveling home on the same train," the Gamemaker informs us.

"Oh, goody!" Spirit's mentor says with fake enthusiasm. She shoots a vicious glare at Brutus. "Just pray I don't kill you in your sleep, you -"

"Thanks for telling us!" Lief says loudly over whatever Johanna was going to call Brutus. The mentors from District Seven have a longstanding feud with District Two, and I can see why; in every year since Johanna won, a tribute from District Two has killed the tributes from Seven. It must be bugging Brutus to have his winning streak ended.

"When do we leave?" Spirit asks.

"Now."

They take us to the train station in a car with blacked-out windows. I guess they don't want any crazy Capitol fans harassing us on our way home. Lief and Spirit's mentors argue under their breath the whole ride there, while Brutus just sits stony-faced on the opposite side of the car. Lief, Spirit, and I are silent. I get the feeling that if I open my mouth, Brutus will jump across the aisle and strangle me. Me holding Spirit's hand is probably bothering him enough.

Spirit is the only one to speak during the ride. "Nice job in the interview," she says to me.

"Thanks. You, too."

By the time they get us all onto the train, I'm glad to get away from Brutus and the other mentors. As soon as I can, I escape to the sleeping car and hole up in one of the rooms, waiting for the train to get moving. The distance between District Two and the Capitol is small; we'll be there early tomorrow morning. From there, it'll be a train ride of an hour or two for Spirit and Lief to reach District Seven. And then it'll be four months before the Victory Tour.

Or, as I've been looking at it, four months before I see Spirit again.

The train ride is so smooth that I don't know we're moving until I see the Capitol blurring past outside the window. Maybe it's finally safe to go out.

I check the dining car first, but I don't see Spirit or Lief. I pick up a roll to snack on and keep looking, coming across Lief in one of the living rooms in the next car over.

"Spirit's in the next room. They set her up with another transfusion and told us to leave her alone," he warns me, looking up from the book he's reading. "She's not in a good mood."

"Who is?" I mutter.

The next room is nearly identical to the one I just left, except it has a fireplace where the giant flat-screen TV was. There's a smaller TV balanced on a shelf, going full-blast with replays of our interviews. People in the Capitol seem to think we can't go without seeing our lives spread all over the news. The first thing I'm doing when I get home is throwing the TV out the window so I don't have to watch it anymore.

Spirit is stretched out on the couch opposite the fireplace. She's still wearing her interview outfit - even the stupid shoes - but the armbands are gone, and in their place she has an IV line dripping blood into her veins. There's an IV stand, and a bag of dark blood hanging from it. In spite of all the new blood they're pumping into her, Spirit looks sick and pale, staring into the fireplace with a blank gaze.

"Hey," I say. Spirit doesn't move, so I try her name. "Spirit?"

Her eyes flick toward me. "Cato. Hi." She tries to smile, but it doesn't work. She still looks like she's going to burst into tears.

I've never seen Spirit cry. Hell, she had enough reason to during the Games, but I never saw her break. "Are you okay?" I ask, dragging one of the armchairs closer and sitting down.

She shrugs, making the bag of blood sway on the IV stand. "My feet hurt."

I glance at the shoes. "It's too bad you didn't have those in the arena. Could've been useful."

"Tell me about it. If I could just get them off -" Spirit pokes at one of her feet with the other one, trying to pull off the shoe, but it doesn't budge. "Dammit."

I reach up and pull off the right shoe, then the left. She has red marks on her feet from the straps; some of them are already turning into bruises. "There you go."

"Thanks."

I take her hand. "I've been wanting to talk to you all week."

"I've wanted to talk to you as well." Spirit twists onto her side to get a better look at me. "Thank you for what you said in the interviews."

"What did I say?" I think I spent the interview trying to dodge probing questions, most of them about my relationship with Spirit.

"When he asked you what the most dramatic part of the Games was. Thank you for what you said. About me being…like I am."

Suddenly, I realize what Spirit's getting at. "You mean about you being a mutant?"

She nods. She looks almost nervous.

"It's not a problem," I tell her. A strand of her hair has escaped the feather clip, and I brush it out of her face. "I meant what I said. It was amazing."

"Amazing because I was saving your life?" Spirit raises her eyebrows.

"Sort of, I guess." I can feel myself getting embarrassed, stumbling over my words, and for the first time in my life, I wish I could talk about my feelings without acting stupid. "But mostly because it was you."

Spirit's cheeks flush. It's like all the blood in her body goes straight to her face.

"We have to talk," she says. "This thing, whatever it is -"

"Us?"

"Yes, that." Spirit's getting more and more anxious. "I care about you, Cato, but I don't see how this can work."

"Why not?" All the week she was unconscious, I was telling myself that even if she was alive, this might happen. She might not want to be in a relationship with me. But it hurts more than I expected.

"Because we're from different districts. Because you're from the Peacekeeper district and I'm a mutant," Spirit says. She makes an angry motion at her injured leg. "Because I'm going to be crippled for the rest of my life and you're going to be fine. You can't really think the Capitol is going to let us -"

"They let there be five victors. Anything can happen."

"No, it can't!" Spirit says. She's pushed herself up on her elbows, but now she sinks back down. "You don't know anything, Cato."

"Yeah? What don't I know?" I shoot back. People call me a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them, and that seems like what she's saying. "Let me guess; you've been pretending this whole time to get sponsors?"

"I don't play to the cameras!" Spirit yells. Behind her, the door opens and Lief peeks through, looking for the source of the noise. I glare at him and he backs out again. "I got myself crippled saving your life, and President Snow almost had me killed for daring to be a mutant in Panem. You think I was doing all that for fun?"

"You're asking the wrong person. I don't know anything, remember?" I get up, walk back into the room Lief's in, and slam the door so hard that the wall shakes.

Lief stares at me and shakes his head. "It's a good thing she likes you."

I walk up and down the train for maybe half an hour, trying to calm down, and when that doesn't work, I pick up a vase and throw it the length of one of the train cars. The noise draws Brutus down on me, but instead of giving me a lecture, he just smirks and walks away, which is almost worse. When I finally decide that I've overreacted and go back to try and work things out with Spirit, she's gone.

She's not at dinner, either. To say that dinner is awkward is an understatement. Nobody, not even Lief, dares to open their mouth. Brutus and I sit on one side of the table and the District Seven crew sits on the other, with Spirit's chair next to Johanna conspicuously empty. During the third course, Lief's mentor falls asleep facedown in his dinner plate. I guess that happens a lot, because Lief just turns Blight's head to the side so he won't choke and keeps on eating.

Over dessert, I make the mistake of asking Johanna if she knows where Spirit is, and why she hasn't come to dinner. Johanna smiles at me. It's not a nice smile, it's one of those aren't-you-stupid smiles. "Am I my victor's keeper?" she asks, and even without the glare Lief's giving me, I know enough to drop it. As soon as dinner is over, I excuse myself from the table and all but run back to the sleeping car.

One of the doors is shut. I'm guessing Spirit's in there, but when I try the door, it's locked. This makes me sort of nervous - I remember what happened the last time I lost track of Spirit - but then I decide that she's fine. She's either still pissed at me or asleep. I'll leave her alone. I can talk to her in the morning.

I haven't really had a good night's sleep since, well, before I went into the arena. But every time I've fallen asleep during the past week, I've woken up panicked from nightmares. Once, I sleepwalked all the way into the living room and took a chair to the flat-screen TV. I think I was dreaming about Thresh that night. Brutus said he didn't care if I was dreaming about the goddamned end of the world - I wasn't to go around smashing things.

So, yeah, my sleep hasn't been particularly restful for the past month. But who knows? Maybe tonight will be my night.

It's not.

The dream I have starts off normally enough; I'm in the practice room back at the battle school in District Two, running through sword drills. And then the dummy I've just stabbed in the chest _moves_. It pulls my sword out of its chest and throws it at me. I stagger backwards, the sword just missing my head, but then I trip on my own feet and fall right into the arms of another dummy. This one grabs my neck and gives it a sharp twist to the side. I actually hear the snap of my spine and that's when I wake up.

My heart is going fast, and the sheets on my bed are soaked with sweat. I strip the heavy comforter off the bed and ball it up on the floor. Then I go into the bathroom, turn on the shower as cold as it will go, and stick my head in, hoping that I wasn't screaming. I don't think I was; the dream was short, and I got my neck broken too fast to make any noise. Just like the boy from District Three…

I give my head a shake and spray droplets of water everywhere. Just be glad your head's still attached, Cato, and leave it at that.

Once my heartbeat calms down, I decide to have another shot at sleeping, because I'm just too tired to do anything else. This time, the nightmare doesn't even pretend to be a normal dream. It's like I'm living the last hours of the Games in fast-forward; running through the woods, climbing up the Cornucopia, getting shot in the hand and falling down into the pack of mutts. Only this time, there's no Spirit to save me. I'm on my own. And I'm going to die.

I wake up just as the mutt's teeth close around my throat, and this time I know I was screaming, because Brutus is standing over my bed. "Quiet down," he barks. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

Who's trying to sleep? We're all victors on this train, and if everyone's time in the arena was anything like mine, nobody's sleeping. "It's not my fault," I snap at him. "I haven't slept well in a month."

"Try a sleeping pill. They keep them in the cabinets in the bathroom." Then Brutus is gone. The light from the hallway comes in for the brief second that the door is open. I go into the bathroom and just like Brutus said, there are sleeping pills in one of the cabinets. That's the first nice thing Brutus has done for me since I won the Games, but the only reason he did it is because he wanted me to shut up. I'm going to be glad once we get home and I won't have to see him every day.

Back home, victors - especially new victors - are celebrities. I can probably expect the first few weeks back home to be a lot like when I was in the Capitol, just not as annoying. The closer I get to home, the more I have to start thinking about the Games as an accomplishment instead of a nightmare. That's how everyone else will see it. When the victors used to come talk to us trainees in battle school, they'd go on and on about the joys of being a victor, the confidence, the sense of pride. They never talked about this side of it; how you can't sleep at night, and how everything you see reminds you of the arena.

I down the sleeping pills and crawl back into bed, thinking that I can't get home soon enough.

Whatever's in the sleeping pill is powerful stuff, because by the time I open my eyes next morning, bright sunlight is already coming through the windows. I jump up, trip over the comforter, and catch myself on the windowsill, staring out at the mountain ranges of my district.

Brutus bangs on the door. "Get ready. We'll be arriving shortly." Then, to somebody else, he says, "Stay out of the way, would you?"

I can't hear the other person's response, and I get dressed as fast as I can. When I come out of my room, still buttoning my shirt, I see that the door to the room next to mine is open. I go to shut the door, but as it closes, it runs into something, and Spirit says, "Can you leave it open, please?"

I back up and she comes out, pushing herself in her wheelchair. She looks up. "Oh. It's you."

I'm not sure what to say. "Your arm's bleeding," is the best I can come up with.

Spirit looks at it. "Yeah. I'm not supposed to move around on my own, but if I waited for Johanna to come get me, I'd never get out of there."

I glance out the window. I can see the train station of District Two getting closer all the time. This is it. After this, I'm not going to see her until the Victory Tour, and I know I'm going to miss her. I feel like we should kiss or something, except I haven't decided whether or not I forgive her.

Spirit makes the decision for me. "I'm sorry for what I said yesterday. I was angry, and, um, it wasn't about you. It was my fault."

"It's okay," I say. "Look, Spirit, what I meant was -"

"Cato!" Brutus hollers from one of the other cars. "We're arriving!"

"We'll make it work," I say in a rush. I lean down and kiss her. "See you on the Victory Tour."

"I'll write to you."

"Better yet, you can call." I grin, remembering that the houses in the Victor's Village have phones.

"Cato, NOW!"

Spirit winces as Brutus yells again. "You'd better go."

I run to the end of the train car, but I stop at the door and half-turn to look back at her. She makes a shooing motion with her hand, and a drop of blood comes off her arm and hits the carpet. I wave goodbye and take off through the train, making it onto the station platform just as someone announces my name.

The next few minutes are a blur of people shaking my hands and giving me hugs and congratulating me. I hear the train whistle and see it pull away, bound west for District Seven to drop off Spirit and Lief. There are people everywhere, friends from my neighborhood, old rivals from battle school, but I'm looking for my family, and I can't find them anywhere. And then somebody tackles me from behind.

The crowd steps back in shock, forming a ring around me as I wrestle with my attacker. I'm pretty sure I know who it is. I manage to pin the guy and I grin down at my older brother. "Got you again, Crow."

Crow lets out an offended snort. "Yes, Cato. You're a victor; of course you can beat up on a poor hovercraft mechanic like me."

I notice that he's wearing his full dress uniform, complete with the winged-gear insignia of the mechanic corps. They must have held back his graduation from the Peacekeeper Academy so he could see me come home.

My mother bursts out of the crowd. "Oh, Crow, you've ruined your dress uniform!"

Crow stands up and dusts himself off. "Mom! Cato just came home from the Hunger Games and all you can talk about is my dress uniform?"

Mom pushes past Crow and catches me in a bone-crushing hug. She's a stonecutter, and I don't care what the trainers at battle school say, nobody has bigger muscles than the stonecutters. I feel like she's going to break my back. "Hi, Mom."

I think Mom is actually crying. "I'm so glad. I'm so glad you're home."

My younger sister Aurelia grabs onto my leg and refuses to let go. I've tried to tell her she's too old for that - she's twelve - but she won't give it up. "Cato, I was so worried," she scolds. "Don't ever scare me like that again."

My dad is the last one to come out of the crowd. He works in the mines just like Mom, but he's always been sort of sick, and he's not looking too good. He still has marble dust in his hair. He pats me awkwardly on the shoulder. "Good job, son."

I try not to roll my eyes. "Thanks. Dad."

Crow digs an elbow into my side. "You know, Cato, half the girls in District Two are home crying right now."

"Why?"

"Because you've got a _girlfriend_," Crow says, grinning. He elbows me again. "You broke all their little hearts. And what's that on your necklace? A promise ring?"

I bring my hand up and realize that Spirit's ring is still there. Damn! I was planning to give it back to her, but then we had that fight, and this morning I ran out of time.

"It's pretty," Aurelia says, finally letting go of my leg. "Your girlfriend has good taste."

"Aurelia," my mother says warningly, and she shoots a quick glance at the cameras ringing the station platform. "Behave yourself."

They've organized a parade. Me and my family get to ride in an open-topped car from the train station to the Victor's Village, with an honor guard of final-year battle school trainees. Most of them look sick with jealousy, like they wish they were the ones who'd just won the Games. People line the streets, throwing flowers at us, and Mom and Aurelia just love it. Dad hunches awkwardly in his seat, like he doesn't want to be here, and Crow uses the ride as an opportunity to give me the lowdown on everything that's happened while I was gone.

"So, I graduated from the Peacekeeper Academy, but I'm not going to get deployed until after you come home from the Victory Tour," he says. "Damn you, Cato. Now I have to wait five more months to leave this stupid place!"

I laugh. "Sorry."

"And Aurelia's at the top of her class. She'll brag to you about that later. Oh, and Mom's pregnant again." Crow adds this last in an undertone.

"Again?" Personally, I think one younger sister is enough, but Mom doesn't agree. It's like every time she and Dad get bored, they have another kid.

Crow nods. "Smile, little brother. We're almost to the village."

The Victor's Village in District Two is set on the side of one of the smaller mountains, and with the sunlight coming in through the clouds, the whole thing is glowing. The other victors are standing outside their houses, clapping politely for me as the car parks in front of one of the houses.

Brutus steps up and opens the door to the house. "All your family's things were moved in yesterday," he says as I step inside. "Welcome to your new home."

The floor's made of marble. Whenever I take a step, the heels of my shoes make a weird noise against it. Aurelia bobs alongside me as I wander through the lower floor, spouting out little facts about the house.

"It has five bathrooms, Cato," she says. "One for each of us."

"That's big news." It really is. Back in our old house, we had two bathrooms for five people, and half the time the water wasn't working. It always killed Aurelia to have to go to school without washing her hair. She must be thrilled.

"We all picked out our rooms," she continues as I climb the stairs. "You and me and Crow can rotate around if you don't like the room we picked for you - Mom said we have to, since this is really your house - but I thought you'd want the room that had the best view. Here."

I stop beside one of the doors and go to open it, but Aurelia does it for me. "Do you like it?"

The first thing I see is the window, taking up one whole wall of the room. I can see the mountains - the real mountains, not the ones that have been mined out - for miles and miles. Most of them don't have their snow cover yet, but it's only August. There's still plenty of time. "It's great, Ari," I tell her.

She relaxes. "So I don't have to switch my room?"

"No. Just tell me one thing, though; which way does the window face?"

"West," Aurelia says. She bounces on the balls of her feet, ready to get moving. "Can I show you my room now? You have to promise that you're not going to make me trade it to you."

"Promise."

Aurelia sets off down the hall again, and I follow her, letting her finish showing me around the rest of the house. Then we go back downstairs to rejoin my family. Mom's just as happy - if not happier - than Aurelia. She's practically glowing, and for once, Dad doesn't look like he's about to collapse from exhaustion. Getting this for them was worth the reaping and the arena and watching myself be played as a murderer on TV. Maybe it's even worth the nightmares.

If it's made my family this happy, how can winning the Hunger Games make me feel so sick?


	4. Blood and Water

A/N: Thanks to RoseMaple, writer with no words, and ImmortalPalomino for the reviews.

* * *

Spirit:

Life in District Seven is strange, to say the least. The people treat me like I'm some sort of cross between an guardian angel and an exotic animal. The Victor's Village is on a hill overlooking the river, a deceptively calm body of water that cuts the district's main city in half. In the month I've been here, at least twenty people have drowned in it, mostly kids who don't know how to swim.

"Why don't their parents keep an eye on them?" I ask Johanna one day as the wailing from the riverside rises up on the wind.

Johanna snorts. "What parents, Nails?"

She's switched out the epithet 'loveless' (which she says is obsolete at this point) for 'Nails', the nickname Peeta Mellark came up with for me in the arena. "What do you mean, what parents?"

"Their parents are either working triple shifts in the paper mill to pay for food or they're out on a logging trip," Johanna says. "Nobody's keeping an eye on the kids."

Her eyes narrow. "But you should know that. Being a street rat and all."

I nod hastily, getting the message loud and clear. Living in District Seven is like tiptoeing through a minefield; I can never be sure when I'll set off something that could blow my cover even further. The real street rats, the ones who know that Lief and I appeared in District Seven precisely twelve hours before the reaping, treat me like I'm one of them in exchange for food and blankets. The arrangement works. I keep them alive and they keep quiet.

Lief has a different strategy. He somehow managed to insinuate himself into the dominant street rat gang and now they all act like they've known him for years. It's a bit of a role reversal for the two of us; back in the north, I was the popular one, my skill as a commander winning me the friends my personality couldn't. Lief was smart and charismatic and an alarmingly large percentage of the female population seemed to find him attractive, but the fact remained that he wasn't that great of a fighter. No soldier girl wanted to get with a guy who might cut and run on her in a fight.

You can say this for us northern girls; we may not be the prettiest, but we're definitely the most practical.

It turns out that the day Lief and I arrived in District Seven for the reaping was an anomaly in that it wasn't raining when we got there. I was preparing myself for a district of constant heat and humidity, and sunlight, but as it turns out, District Seven is the rainiest place in Panem. It rained the day we got back from the Capitol, and it's rained every day since.

It's a good thing I'm no longer in the wheelchair. In addition to being the rainiest place in Panem, District Seven is also the muddiest, and the wheelchair's spokes get unbelievably mired. The doctors didn't think I was ready to get out of the wheelchair, but after a week and a half of constant rain (and consequently, a week and a half of me being stuck inside) I put my proverbial foot down and started getting used to the crutches. Today, though. Today the doctors from the Capitol are coming to fit my leg brace and then I won't have to use the crutches any more.

My main objective for the hour before the doctors arrive is to clean up the house, because this being Panem, where absolutely everything is televised, they might have cameras with them. My house is pretty - exposed beams, light wood, and windows that let in the sun on the rare occasions when it appears - but it's still a mess, and since I'm not exactly mobile, I can't clean it. I drag myself on my crutches around the lower floor, picking up all the things I've knocked over and setting them back where I think they go. In the kitchen, the sink is full of dirty dishes.

"Oh, _hell_," I mumble, staring at the mess. "How did this happen?"

It happened because every night, Lief and I have to cook dinner for ourselves, Blight, and Johanna. Despite the fact that we have money to burn, victors in District Seven can't hire people to help them, although I didn't figure out why until I asked Lief why we didn't just pay someone to cook for our mentors. Then Lief told me about how Blight, in a withdrawal rage, smashed his last cook's femur with a frying pan, and I didn't ask again.

It's the unspoken rule of District Seven. Victors take care of victors, and don't get the ordinary people involved.

I pick up the phone, set into the wall by the kitchen window, and dial Lief's number. It's easy to remember; only a one-digit difference from mine. He picks up on the second ring. "Lief, I'm going to kill you."

"What'd I do this time?"

"Now I know why you always want to make dinner at my house." I glance again at the pile of used dishes and suppress a snarl. "There are people from the Capitol coming here in an hour and the place is a mess. Come help me wash the dishes."

Lief has the house next to mine; he comes to one of his windows and looks at me. The pile of dishes is stacked high enough that it can be seen from the window, so I point at it and raise my eyebrows. Lief blanches. "I can't, Spirit. I have stuff to do."

"Yeah? What?"

"I'm working on my talent."

All the victors are supposed to have a talent. I've heard that Peeta Mellark's is painting, and Katniss's is designing clothes. Cato hasn't selected his yet, and I mostly get a free pass because I'm a cripple now. Lief's talent is music. He sings - he's not too terrible - and he's learning to play the guitar and piano. With heavy emphasis on the learning part. The guitar isn't awful (at least it's quiet) but when he's practicing the piano, I can hear it in my house.

"I don't care if you're building a nuclear bomb," I snap at him. "You made half this mess; you have to clean half of it up."

"Or what?"

"Or I'm not helping you with the cooking ever again." I can only give Lief simple jobs, like stirring pots or cutting things up. He's useless with everything else. In the north, both women and men are taught to cook, but with Lief, it never stuck. I can remember us at seven, trying to make a stew, and him letting the pot boil over because he got interested in what his pretty neighbor was thinking.

Lief sighs. "Fine. I'm coming over."

I see him hang up the phone, and about thirty seconds later, I see his front door open and he slogs through the mud to my house. I hear the door open and he comes in. "You know why we always cook at your house, Spirit? Because your crutches get stuck in the mud."

"Not after today," I mutter, starting in on the dishes. "Why couldn't they have just amputated my leg and been done with it?"

Lief rolls his eyes. "Don't start, Spirit. You're lucky they could save it. And once you get the brace, you'll be able to walk around like normal again."

"What about running? And kicking? And -"

"You're done with the Games, Spirit. You don't need to do that any more."

Lief is lying through his teeth, of course. But it's a necessary evil, because we think the house is wired to relay all of our conversations back to the Capitol, and we can't risk revealing Lief as a northerner as well. Now that the Games are over, we have one goal; keep the nascent rebellion going, no matter how hard the victors from District Twelve try to stop it.

District Seven is fairly sluggish when it comes to any kind of change. No matter what happens around them, the people here keep trudging to work in the paper factory, going out in the endless rain to chop down trees, building their log houses and never really getting dried off. But even here, there are mutterings of rebellion, and nowhere are those mutterings louder than among the street rats. And I can see why; the street rats have been orphaned because of the Capitol's greed.

It takes half an hour to finish washing the dishes, and by that time the light rain has escalated into a full-blown storm. Lief looks out at it unhappily. "Can't I stay over here until it calms down?"

"Lief, it's ten steps from my house to yours and unlike me, you have two working legs. Go practice the piano or something." Usually I'm fine with Lief hanging around here, but not today. I'm going to deal with the doctors on my own.

"Ha. You're so funny." But he leaves, and as soon as the door closes behind him, I make my way to the living room and collapse on the couch. It's been eleven days since my last blood transfusion, and I'm getting dizzy again.

I'm not sure if President Snow was telling the truth when he said they couldn't completely cure my radiation sickness, or if he just ordered the doctors not to, but either way, the transfusions aren't a perfect fix. Toward the end of the two-week period, I start to feel the symptoms of radiation sickness coming on again. And then there's the sheer volume of blood needed to keep me healthy.

I wonder if President Snow is regretting his decision to let me live. It wouldn't surprise me.

I'm dozing off when the doctors show up a few minutes later and announce their presence by banging on the door so hard that it sounds like it's going to splinter. I get up, limp to the door, and open it to find myself face-to-face with a Peacekeeper.

The gut reaction whenever I see a Peacekeeper is still panic, followed immediately by a vicious burst of adrenaline. It's difficult to keep my expression neutral while my mind is screaming "Kill it! Kill it!", but after a month, I think I've finally managed to control the urge to attack. I lean against the doorway - easier than balancing on one crutch - and say pleasantly, "Can I help you?"

"Miss Emerson, I'm just escorting your doctors," the Peacekeeper says, and he steps aside to reveal three blue-coated doctors, soaking wet and miserable. I look around, but I can't see cameras anywhere. Small favors.

I step back to let them inside, get off-balance, and nearly fall on my face. I get the crutches under me just in time to prevent the collapse, but not fast enough to keep the doctors from seeing. "I bet you're glad we're here," one of them says nervously.

"You have no idea."

The brace is this streamlined thing made of silver metal that reinforces my entire leg. Even though the main problem is with my hip, the muscles that control the rest of my leg were weakened by the injury, and the extra support from the brace will help me walk normally. The doctors put it on me, adjust the fit by twisting some gears, and then have me get up and walk around.

It's a relief to be able to move without the crutches, to have my arms free, and I take a few laps around the living room while the doctors watch. Then they force me to sit down again so they can teach me to put on the brace and adjust it myself. And then one of them whips out a camera and takes a picture.

"What was that for?" I snap, still blinking from the flash.

"Your stylist," the doctor explains, storing the camera inside her coat. "She wanted to see what the brace looked like so she could design your Victory Tour outfits around it."

Poor Elisheba. The brace isn't exactly unsightly, but it doesn't contribute much to the 'dangerous' aura she tries to project with my costumes. She's going to have a hell of a time working around it.

The last action of the team of doctors is to hook me up with another transfusion, even though it's supposed to be three days until my next one. Back in the Capitol, my transfusions only consisted of one bag of blood, but now that I have them every two weeks, every transfusion is double the amount. They hang one bag of blood off the IV stand and store the other in an ice chest by the couch, and give me strict instructions not to move around. Then they hurry out into the rain, glad to get away from the mutant victor and her gloomy district.

I find a book and settle in, watching the healthy blood drip into my veins. For awhile I was worried that the blood transfusions would suppress my shape-changing skill - which may have been President Snow's point - but as it turns out, the radiation sickness in my bones converts all the new cells, keeping my mutation alive and well. The radiation sickness isn't the problem, and now, neither is my injured leg. My current issue is what I'm going to do in District Seven for the next three months.

Lief has the street rat connection; it's his job to spread the rebellion from the lowest members of society. I'm superfluous until the Victory Tour, at which point I'm supposed to utilize my greater popularity with the crowds to raise the possibility of a country-wide insurrection. But I'm not sure if that's within my capabilities. I made a better commander than Lief because I acted on instinct and made snap decisions. Lief plans things out and views every action as an essential piece of the larger plan. This is his territory. Not mine.

That disparity between us goes back all the way to the days of the first survivors, the people who fled north to escape the bombs. My family and his were at odds for decades, our ancestors grappling for leadership of the group, his advocating peace talks with the fledgling government of Panem, mine knowing instinctively that the only way for us to remain free was to make the cost of controlling us too high. The bombs fell when our ancestors were in their twenties, but they were both in their fifties before they reached an agreement.

My ancestor, Rhiannon, died first. She'd made the mistake of venturing into one of the blast zones searching for survivors, and the radiation she was exposed to shortened her life span, caused a mutation in the child she was carrying at the time, and laid the foundation for the disease that's cursed my family for years. Lief's ancestor, Terrence, lived into his eighties, and the mutation didn't come into his family until one of his daughters married a shape-changer.

Look at our people now, though, and tell me who was right.

I'm Rhiannon's last direct descendant. I have a few second and third cousins, but I've never met them. There's no small amount of irony in the fact that the descendants of Terrence and Rhiannon have formed an uneasy alliance once again. Lief thinks I've forgiven him for not telling me the truth about Valentine, and I have, but that doesn't mean I trust him any more. Or ever again.

I look up from my book when someone pounds frantically on my door. "Miss Emerson! Are you in there? Please open up!"

Whoever it is, they're in a panic. I get up from the couch and walk to the door, pulling the IV stand behind me. I open the door cautiously. "What is it?"

A very filthy person stands on my doorstep. Covered with dirt and shreds of bark and blood, their short hair wild, tears in their eyes. I can't even tell if it's a man or a woman. "There was an accident," the person gasps in a voice made shrill by panic. "At the station -"

The station is where they divide up the massive logs from the forest into smaller, more workable pieces. Lots of heavy objects, lots of sharp machinery, and consequently, lots of accidents. "What happened?"

"My sister - she lost her leg," the person manages. I think it's a woman. The voice is too high to be male. "The medics cauterized it, but they say she won't make it. She's losing too much blood."

"I'm sorry," I say, not sure why this woman is here. By the time she gets back to the station, it'll be too late to do anything. And I'm sure the medics know better than I do when someone is a truly hopeless case. So then why…?

I glance back into my house. The ice chest with the second half of my blood transfusion is still sitting on the floor. I eyeball the amount of blood left inside the first bag, then look back into the frightened face of the woman on my doorstep. "Wait here."

I limp back into the house and grab the ice chest, dragging it to the door. I force it into the woman's hands. "Take this back to the station. Tell the medics to run an IV line - and don't tell them where you got this."

The woman cradles the ice chest like they're holding a newborn baby. "Thank you, Miss Emerson."

"It's Spirit," I correct. "Go!"

She vanishes into the rain, running faster than I'll ever be able to run. I shut the door - the wind is blowing the rain in - and make my way back to the couch to finish out the remainder of the transfusion. If I'm careful and very lucky, I'll be able to make it to the next transfusion without any fainting episodes, but it'll be a stretch.

The sky slowly darkens into night, and when I don't appear at the appointed hour, Lief comes over to my house to cook dinner for Johanna and Blight. I don't regret giving away the blood, but when Lief confronts me about it on the front steps, I lose my temper with blinding speed.

"So I'm not supposed to help people, Lief?" I snap, stepping out into the rain and shutting the door behind me. "This place is ambivalent about me as it is. I'm not allowed to try and make things a little better?"

"Not at your own expense," Lief retaliates. "You need that blood, Spirit, and that woman - what if she died anyway?"

"Do you know?"

Lief shakes his head. "I haven't heard anything." He takes a deep, dragging breath, and says, "Okay. You did a good thing. That's not in dispute. But you've got to be careful, Spirit." _This thing isn't over yet_.

I nod. If news gets back to the Capitol that I'm giving away my blood supply, President Snow might think I'm trying to commit suicide, and who knows what will happen then. He might decide to just let me go entirely. "Did anyone see me give it?"

Lief shakes his head. "Me and Resin saw you. Nobody else."

Resin is Lief's closest friend among the street rats. Unfortunately, he also runs District Seven's thriving rumor mill. I slam my hand against the railing, aware that there will be bruising but too frustrated to care. "It'll be all over the district by morning and in the Capitol tomorrow night."

"Resin was really surprised," Lief says. "It was all he could talk about. People will be shocked. They won't tell."

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, relieved. Then Lief adds, "Just don't do it again, Spirit. We're still in this."

I try not to imagine my radiation blood shredding the healthy cells. "Okay."

Lief and I work on cooking dinner - a stew. I give him the job of adding the ingredients to the pot after I chop them up. I probably shouldn't be handling a knife in my current state, but what the hell. I used knives in worse condition while I was in the arena, and I never cut myself.

"Have you heard from Cato lately?" Lief asks me as he dumps about a pound of meat into the pot of water on the stove.

I shake my head. "He called the first week, but not since then."

With so much else going on, I've tried not to dwell on it, but most of my efforts on that front have been in vain. Unlike me, Cato has a life in his district; family, friends, possibly a girlfriend I didn't know about who's capitalizing on the fact that I'm a thousand miles away. It doesn't surprise me that he hasn't called or written, and I've been too busy learning the ropes of my adopted district to call or write to him. Our relationship is at a standstill.

Lief flicks a piece of carrot at me. "You should call him."

"Wouldn't that come across as, I don't know, sort of desperate?"

He laughs. "It's been what, three weeks? I don't think that counts as desperate. If you can talk to the person you like, do it. I would if I could."

Lief's girlfriend is back in the north. He can't see her again until our mission is complete. He's kept the complaining to a minimum, but I know it bothers him. "Okay."

I call Cato, but it's his older brother who picks up, and when I ask him if he could get Cato for me, he shouts, "Hey, Cato, it's your girlfriend on the phone!" Then there's some scuffling from the other end of the line and a loud click, followed by the dial tone. They just hung up on me. I stare bemusedly at the phone, and I'm about to put it down when it starts ringing again. I hold it up to my ear. "Hello?"

"Spirit?" Cato sounds out of breath. "Sorry about that, my brother's an idiot."

Faintly, through the receiver, I can hear Cato's brother say, "You're the idiot, making your poor girlfriend call you instead of -"

There's a thump, presumably Cato punching his brother. "Sorry," he repeats. Then, muffled, he says, "Crow, Ari, go away _now_."

I hear laughter and the sound of receding footsteps. When there's more than five seconds of silence, I say, "So things are going well with your family, then?"

"Yeah." Cato's silent for a minute. "They're pains, though. Especially my brother. He's just pissed that he had to delay his deployment until after the Victory Tour."

"He seems…exuberant," I say.

"I had to share a room with him for thirteen years," Cato adds. "He was a nightmare. I don't know why I let them all move in with me."

"It was a good idea," I say. "Houses this big get scary at night."

I can't stand living alone. All my life, I've shared a house with other people; with my parents for the first years of my life, and with Abbess and her vast extended family for the rest. And when I wasn't at home, I was sleeping in a campsite, surrounded by my fellow soldiers. This house, with its empty rooms and high ceilings that bounce back every sound, frightens me. It doesn't feel like a place for humans.

"Are you sleeping okay?" Cato asks me. "You sound tired."

"I had a long day," I lie. I sleep only when I can't function any longer. Most nights I'm awake, wandering the house or watching the rain or playing endless games of solitaire. I didn't think anything could be worse than Valentine's incursions into my dreams. Now he's gone, though, and nature abhors a vacuum, so it only makes sense that something worse would take his place. "What about you?"

"I'm sleeping fine," he says, and I suspect he's lying to me the same way I lied to him. Or maybe the victors of District Two really are different, and they don't feel the same way about their kills as the rest of us. "How's your leg?"

"I got my brace fitted today," I say, looking down at the silver metal supporting my leg. "So it's better."

"Good. That's good." Cato says. Then he yawns. He tries to cover it up, but he doesn't quite manage it, and I hear it loud and clear.

"Am I boring you?" It comes out of my mouth before I can censor it, snappish and frustrated, with all the confusion I've felt in the past month.

"No!" Cato says. "No, you're not. I'm just tired, that's all. What I said earlier about sleeping fine, that was a lie. It's not going well. I'm trying not to get addicted to the sleeping pills, so I only take them every other night, and last night was the other night."

Him telling me that almost makes me want to confide in him, too, and tell him that since I refuse to take the sleeping pills, I sleep only when my body has all but shut down from lack of rest. But I lock the words in, feeling like I shouldn't make him worry about me. He has problems of his own. He doesn't need to be thinking about mine as well.

_That's the dumbest piece of logic I've ever heard, _Lief tells me.

_Would you stop it? I don't need to be taking relationship advice from you!_

"Spirit? Are you still there?"

I snap back to attention. "Yeah, sorry. I got distracted for a minute."

"I thought you'd hung up on me."

"No. I'm still here."

Cato makes a noise that's somewhere between frustrated and exhausted. "I can't believe it's three more months until the tour. I miss you."

"I miss you, too," I say. Then, over the sound of Lief moving around the kitchen and the rain against the windows, I hear someone knocking on the door. "Somebody's here. I've got to go."

"Okay. Spirit, I -" Cato trails off. "I miss you, okay? I'll call you tomorrow."

I smile. "I'll look forward to it. Goodbye, then."

"Bye."

The knocking at my door becomes more insistent. Whoever's out there is not giving up. I hang up the phone and limp to the door, pulling it open to reveal a woman. I reach back inside and flip on the porch light, illuminating her, and once I do, I'm almost certain that it's the woman I gave the blood to. She's cleaned up quite a bit. "Yes?"

She smiles. "I wanted to tell you that my sister is going to live."

"That's good," I say.

"The medics said she wouldn't have made it without your…gift," the woman says. "My family owes you."

I shake my head. "You don't owe me anything."

"But we do," the woman says. "So we made this."

She presses a small wooden carving into my hand. I hold it up to the light to get a better look at it, and I see that it's me, one of my hands morphed out to a claw. The detail is incredible; the scales on my clawed hand, the folds of my clothing, even the hair on my head has been painstakingly etched out.

When I tear my eyes away from the carving, I see that the woman is walking away, back into the rainy night. "Wait," I say, and she turns.

"Yes?"

I indicate the carving. "Could you teach me to do this?"

The woman smiles and nods. And then she's gone.

Lief joins me on the porch. "I told you, Spirit. They trust you more now."

I've earned the trust of one district, but there are eleven others, and a nation back home that's counting on me to draw them all in. "I can't get them all, Lief."

"You don't have to. They're already there." Lief looks back inside and swears. "Dammit, the pot's boiling over!"

He runs back inside. I stare out at the tiny cluster of lights that make up District Seven's main town for another second before following him.


	5. Revelation

A/N: Updates will be every other Saturday. Also, thanks to RoseMaple, Mocking Verse, writer with no words, and ImmortalPalomino for the reviews.

* * *

Cato:

I wake up screaming for the fifth night in a row and finally understand that it's never going to stop. No matter how many times I look around and tell myself that I'm home, my brain still thinks I'm in the arena. I can't get away from the people I killed or the monsters that chased me. I wish Spirit was here. Hell, I'm desperate enough that I wish Lief were here, just so I could talk to somebody who's been through the same nightmare that I have. Brutus and the other victors are no help. They already think I'm a pushover; I can't tell them about this.

As I make my way into the hall, I see that there's a light on downstairs. It must be Crow. He looks up as I stagger down the stairs. "Bad night?"

"It's not over yet," I mumble, joining Crow at the kitchen table. He's got one of his hovercraft diagrams spread out and he's studying it.

Crow's father was one of District Two's victors. He killed himself when Crow was four, and a year later, his mother married a stonecutter and had me. Everyone expected Crow to go into battle training and become a tribute like his father, but he didn't. The way he explained it to me was, "Going in there killed my father. Why the hell would I do the same thing?"

I think it's because he doesn't like fighting. The only reason he joined the Peacekeepers was so he could work their machines. He should've been born in District Three.

Crow looks nothing like me. He has black hair and dark eyes, and even though we're the same height, I have way more muscles than he does. Crow thinks working out is a waste of time. Of course he would - Peacekeepers get guns.

He puts the hovercraft schematic aside. "What was it this time? More mutts?"

"Don't want to talk about it." The last time I told Crow about one of my nightmares, he told Brutus, and Brutus hasn't stopped laughing at me since.

"Suit yourself," Crow shrugs. "If you won't talk to me about it, maybe call Spirit."

I glare at him. He says it like it's no big deal, but the whole family is starting to view my relationship with Spirit as some kind of entertainment. Whenever I call her, they listen in, and there's just something so weird about phone conversations. I wish I could see her in person.

"Only another month," Crow says, and I realize I said that last bit out loud. He looks out the window at the pitch-black sky. "It's almost morning. Aren't you going to the school today?"

I hit my head lightly against the table. "Dammit. I forgot."

Crow snorts. "I guess you're not looking forward to it?"

The victors come into the battle school every once in a while, just to remind the future tributes what they're aiming for. As a kid, I remember seeing Brutus and Lyme and later, Enobaria, talking to the older trainees. I also remember Brutus coming to talk to my class a week before the reapings and looking right at me when he said he hoped one of us would volunteer. It was this amazing feeling, like I'd been chosen. At that point, I wasn't sure whether I was going to wait for the names to be called or just charge forward, but when Brutus said that, it made me want to impress him. So I ran out of the crowd before our escort could even draw the name.

Maybe that's when the Capitol people decided that I'd be Cato, the crazy murderer.

The trainees won't be anywhere near as excited to see me at battle school tomorrow. Most of them I trained with, first of all. And second, I'm a total failure as a victor. Maybe I wouldn't be in the other districts, where they think coming back at all is an achievement. But here, compared to Brutus (who killed twelve other tributes) and Enobaria (who ripped out one guy's throat with her teeth) and Lyme (who's six and a half feet tall and has more muscles than I do) I look pathetic. A victor sharing his crown with four others. And only alive at all because of a mutant girl.

Spirit is the third problem District Two has with me. Other districts, like Seven and Twelve, don't care that Spirit's a mutant, but District Two is the district where the Peacekeepers come from. If you stop a random person on the street, chances are they'll know at least one person who's been killed by the northern mutants. Stop another person, and ten to one they'll know at least one person who's killed a mutant. They might even have some shape-shifter claws tacked up over their fireplace. There's no district in Panem that has a bigger grudge against the mutants than Two. So of course, I had to go and fall in love with one.

Yeah, I'm not the most popular guy in District Two right now. I tell this to Crow, and he just shakes his head.

"It'll be fine."

"No, it won't. They'll probably use me for target practice."

Crow laughs. "You're still a victor. Just rough them up a little and they'll leave you alone."

"I don't know," I say. "I'm not sure who they hate more, her or me."

"Her being Spirit?" Crow tilts his head, examining me.

"Who else?" I hit my head on the table again. "It's not going to be safe for her to come through here on the Victory Tour. Some idiot will probably take a shot at her."

"What makes you think that?" Crow rolls his eyes. "I hate to break it to you, Cato, but you're getting paranoid. And for somebody who hasn't called his girlfriend in five days, that's stupid. The poor girl probably thinks you don't like her any longer."

I try to punch him, but he leans to one side and I overextend my arm. I pull it back before he can get a grip. "I do like her! It's just…after the tour, she'll be in Seven, and I'll be here."

Crow just keeps laughing at me. "The victors from Five and Eight got married a couple years back. They switch off between each other's districts. You and Spirit could do that."

"Where'd you learn that?"

"I was on Five's protection detail," Crow says. "Part of my final exams." He stands, rolls up the hovercraft diagram, and tucks it into his coat. Then he heads for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Records. There's something I have to check. Something important."

"What is it?"

"If I'm right, I'll tell you soon," Crow says. "Go get some sleep, Cato. You'll scare the hell out of the trainees."

He leaves. I wonder what's in Records that's worth leaving the house at three in the morning to get a look at. I bet it's nothing. Crow probably had an argument with one of his friends over some random fact, and now he's trying to find it to prove his friends wrong. Sometimes I'm not sure why anyone actually talks to him.

Still, I feel like there was something weird in our conversation. Every time we were talking about Spirit, Crow got this look on his face like he knew something I didn't. Something he didn't want to tell me.

I yawn. What the hell. He's probably just jealous that I have a girlfriend and he doesn't.

I sit at the kitchen table until it gets light, and then I call Spirit. She picks up after four rings. "What?"

She sounds tired. "It's Cato," I say, in case she's too tired to recognize my voice.

"Yeah, I know," she says, and I imagine her smiling. "You okay?"

"Fine. Didn't sleep much. But fine. Yourself?"

"I'm not sleeping much, either," Spirit admits.

"How's it going with your transfusions?" I ask.

"They take hours," she says. "For a while I worked on my carvings, but then I sliced my finger and now the doctors won't let me work on them. They say it defeats the purpose. I wish I had a book. Something to read."

"I can get you a book," I say, remembering the unused, dusty library in the middle of the battle school. Nobody ever goes in there, but there must be thousands of books. "What kind do you like?"

"Anything. You'd really do that?" Spirit sounds surprised.

"It's no problem," I say, starting to get more excited about it. "There are lots of books in the library. It'll be easy to get one for you. I can have it in the mail by tonight."

Spirit is quiet on the other end of the line. Then she says, "I suppose I should send you something from District Seven. Maybe a street rat or something. We have lots of them."

I laugh. "Send yourself."

"I won't fit in a box," she says. From somewhere, Johanna yells at her. "I'd better go."

"Yeah."

I'm never sure what to say at the end of our calls. The obvious thing is 'I love you', but I'm not sure how well that'll go over. Then, with the same brute courage that got me into trouble both at battle school and in the arena, I spit it out, cutting Spirit off as she tries to say goodbye. "I love you."

"Oh," Spirit says, sounding a little thrown-off. "That was…unexpected."

More quiet on her end of the line. Then, "Love you too, Cato." Johanna yells something else, and Spirit says, "Now I really do have to go."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

She hangs up. I spend a few seconds listening to the dial tone like a moron before I hang up, too. Then I drag myself upstairs again to shower and get ready for my stupid visit to the school. I turn the water in the shower on cold, hoping it'll wake me up, but then it backfires and I go into this weird hypothermic torpor that I have to offset by downing six cups of coffee.

I end up going to the battle school jacked up on caffeine and really needing to pee, and as soon as we get through the doors, I run off to the bathroom. Brutus glares at me when I come back, but Enobaria and Lyme totally ignore me. Enobaria's pissed that Spirit's alive and Clove isn't, but she doesn't care enough to actually go after me about it. I guess she figures that I was Brutus's tribute, so now I'm Brutus's problem. I think Lyme feels sort of sorry for me. But she'll never go against Brutus. He's in charge.

In a weird twist, District Two has more female victors than male. I think the guys get targeted and the girls fly under the radar. The girls tend to stay out of the battle school once they win, though. Lyme and Enobaria are the only ones who stay involved.

Brutus drags me off to talk to the top class - all seventeen and eighteen year olds - and watch them train. None of them are as good as Clove and I were. I watch one girl throwing axes at a target, missing over and over again, and I remember Spirit's deadly aim.

Then something occurs to me. Spirit was a street rat. She wasn't part of District Seven's industry. So where'd she learn to throw axes?

After I watch the girl throw axes for another half an hour, Brutus decides I'm not interacting enough and sends me to go work with the swordfighters. I remember fighting some of these guys - and they're all guys (girls tend to go with lighter weapons) - and I don't want to do it again, so I pretend like I'm going to the sword room and instead slip off down a side corridor that leads back into the main hall. It's completely empty - everybody's in training sessions or classes - and I figure I have a while before anyone finds me. I actually start to doze off.

I get woken up in a hurry when Crow charges up to me.

"Hey," he gasps. He's sweating like he's run all the way here. He almost looks panicked. Crow never panics, and neither do I; the rest of the family panics enough for both of us. "Got a minute, Cato?"

"Why?"

"Doesn't matter," Crow says, but by the look on his face, I can tell it does. "You coming or what?"

Sit here and wait for Brutus to find me or go off on mystery adventure with Crow? It's a no-brainer. "Yeah. Hang on."

I follow Crow through the halls of the battle school. He takes us past the training rooms and the library (I remind myself to swing by later and get Spirit's book) into older, dustier rooms. "Where the hell are we going?"

"Records."

"If Brutus finds out that I skipped out on the visit, he'll kill me," I say. "I have to get back soon."

"Trust me," Crow says, stopping in front of a door held shut with a rusty padlock, "it'll be worth your time."

He pulls a key out of his flight-suit pocket and slides it into the lock; then he puts his shoulder into the door and shoves it open. "Welcome to Records, Cato."

I step inside. It's a dusty square room with a stupidly high ceiling. The only window is a skylight. All the file cabinets lining the walls make the room seem even smaller, and it adds to the feeling that I'm stuck at the bottom of a well.

I stare at Crow. "This is where you've been spending all this time?"

Crow is searching through a cabinet labeled 'Peacekeepers'. He pulls out a thick file. "Give me a second. And power up that computer, would you?"

There's a really modern-looking computer over in the corner. I press a button on the side and it squawks at me. "User, identify yourself!"

Crow looks up from the file. "Mechanic First Class Crow Lewis."

"Voice identification confirmed. Thank you, Mechanic Lewis."

Crow pulls a flat disk out of the file and slides it into the computer. "Watch this, Cato."

"It's just some training video," I say, leaning against a file cabinet. "What's so important?"

"Just watch it," Crow says cryptically. "You might see somebody you know."

The video opens up on a set of ruins. It looks like the border ruins two hundred miles north of District Two. And there's a hell of a firefight going on. I think the video is coming from inside a Peacekeeper's helmet, but from what I can see, the boys in white are getting slaughtered. Enemy fire is coming out of everywhere; the ruins, the sides, even the sky. I don't blame the Peacekeeper commander for whipping out a white flag.

"I surrender! We surrender!" he yells, waving the flag. He heads toward the ruins. "Who accepts the surrender?"

A bunch of red lights appear on his chest. I don't need Peacekeeper training to know that the commander has about twenty guns pointed at him. "Tell your men to disarm."

The voice sounds familiar, like I know the speaker really well, but I can't place it. The Peacekeepers drop their weapons, and then the northerners emerge from their hiding spots, some touching down from the air. There are fewer of them than I thought there'd be. Their commander must know what he's doing.

"Who will accept the surrender?" the Peacekeeper commander repeats.

A figure steps out of the crowd. The northerners don't wear rank markings. They all look exactly the same. Most of them even have the same haircut. The video quality is terrible, so I can't really see the person's face, but I can tell by the voice that they're female. "I am the commander. I will accept the surrender."

"Pause," Crow orders the computer, and the video freezes. He draws a square around the rebel commander's indistinct face. "Enhance this section."

The computer zooms way in on the commander's face, the picture becoming clearer and clearer. Crow taps the picture and it expands until it fills the screen. "Recognize her?"

There's no mistaking the face. "Spirit."

She doesn't look that different. She's still alert and focused, the same way she always looked in the Games, except her hair is buzzed short against her skull, and instead of a hammer, she's holding a gun.

I turn to Crow. "How -"

"I'll explain later. Keep watching," Crow says. "Play."

The video continues, and Spirit, frozen in mid-stride, steps forward to the Peacekeeper commander, six inches shorter than he is but with twice the confidence. She takes the white flag out of his hand. "Now what, Commander?"

The Peacekeeper stares at her. "Come again?"

Spirit tucks the white flag into her pocket. "I've never accepted a surrender before. I don't think we have a protocol for this." She looks up at the Peacekeeper commander again. "What do you do, Commander, in the event of a surrender by my people?"

The commander just looks at her. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about where Spirit's going with this. Ordinary kids in District Two don't learn much about the northerners but these two pieces of information; that they're ruthless, and that Peacekeeper crews who lose a fight in the north are never seen or heard from again.

The Peacekeeper blinks. Swallows. "We do not accept surrender."

Spirit nods thoughtfully. "Exactly," she says, and she lifts her gun and shoots him.

The computer screen goes black. Crow looks from me, to the screen, and back again. "So," he says, "obviously, I should have given you a bit more warning…."

"Yeah, a bit," I manage, still reeling. I can't believe that the icy rebel commander on the screen was Spirit.

"I thought it would be better to just hit you with it," Crow continues. "That, as you guessed, was a Peacekeeper training video, shot about three years ago. They use it to show what happens if you make the mistake of surrendering to a northerner."

"It was her," I say, feeling like an idiot.

Crow's starting to look worried. "Let's take a walk, little brother. I bet you have a lot of questions."

I follow Crow numbly down another dark corridor, my brain spinning. I think it's more the shock of being confronted with the truth than anything else. In the back of my mind, I knew Spirit's history didn't add up, but I ignored it, because the real story would make things even harder between us. It's bad enough that she's a mutant, but a northerner, too? She'll be lucky not to be shot in the streets when she comes here on the Victory Tour.

It doesn't matter that I don't care that she's a northerner. The rest of my district does.

Once we get onto the grounds, away from the main building, I turn on Crow. "How did you find out?"

Crow looks surprised. "I didn't pay much attention to her at first because I thought she was going to die. But once she saved you and the cameras started focusing more on her, I started to notice things."

"Like what?"

"Her story didn't add up," Crow says. "Medics in District Seven don't have the skills she did. No one in the districts does. She was trained by someone who knew what they were doing. So that narrowed it down. Either she was a runaway from Two, or she was northern. And I knew I'd seen her somewhere before."

Crow stops talking and salutes a Peacekeeper officer who walks past. Once the Peacekeeper is gone, he continues, "So I checked the census data for District Two. And zip. Everyone was accounted for. So that left the north. I was about to start going through our database of northern soldiers when we were rather suddenly introduced to your girlfriend's darker side."

"I don't care about that," I snap at him. I don't want Crow to think I'm going along with this. "She saved my life and I love her. It doesn't matter where she came from."

Crow bursts out laughing. "You love her? You're eighteen. What the hell do you know about love?"

"Probably a damn sight more than you do," I shoot back. "All you care about are your stupid hovercrafts!"

Crow looks shocked, than angry, and for a second I think he's going to take a shot at me. Then he takes a deep breath and says, "Okay. I was out of line. I'm sorry. It's just, Cato, I don't want her dragging you into something you can't handle."

Now I start laughing. "Something I can't handle? I went through the Hunger Games. You really think there's something I can't handle?"

"Yeah, there's something," Crow mumbles. Then he continues, "So I remembered where I'd seen Spirit before. It took me a while to find the video, but I did. Your girlfriend's a good commander, Cato. She knows how to keep a holding."

I stay quiet. Crow may sound like he doesn't care about the northerners, but there are people who do, and I need to know what he's going to do with this information. "Who have you told?"

Crow shakes his head. "You don't get it, Cato. President Snow already knows. He knew from the minute she put out her claws. A mutation like Spirit's, a big one, doesn't happen overnight. If there really were mutants in District Seven, we'd have seen evidence. Intermediary stages. Anyway, he doesn't think she poses a threat. But he missed something."

"What?"

Crow shakes his head again. "That's the problem with the Capitol. They think the northerners are stupid. Did you know, Cato, that every fight we've had with Spirit's people has been started by us?"

I didn't know that. "Crow, get to the point. What did he miss?"

"Infiltration is a two-person job," Crow continues, like I haven't said anything. "You always need a second spy in case your first one blows their cover. President Snow needs to read the Peacekeeper manuals. It figures that the northerners would use our own tactics against us."

"Crow!"

"Sorry. But can't you guess? Who the other northerner is?"

"Lief." I don't even have to think about it. In fact, it's so obvious, I can't believe I missed it. Spirit did say she'd known him for years, and they always seemed to be working together, even when they were fighting. "But why?"

"Why do you think?"

I hate it when Crow plays teacher. "Just tell me before I punch you."

But Crow's not going to let me threaten him out of the big reveal. "Look at the facts," he says. "We've instigated every fight we've had with the northerners. We've been attacking them for years. And last year, we almost destroyed their one and only city. And now there are two northerners in Panem, with access to the Capitol and all the districts. What do you think they're here for, Cato? Why would they go to all this trouble?"

I put the pieces together ridiculously fast. "They're trying to overthrow the Capitol."

Crow nods slowly. "That's right."

"And President Snow knows about it?"

"Yeah. But he doesn't think the northerners are strong enough, and he doesn't know about Lief," Crow says. "Add that to the stunt the little girl from Twelve pulled with the berries, and you've got trouble. It doesn't matter what we do, Cato. There's going to be a war. What you need to do -" he fixes me with a piercing gaze "- is figure out whose side you're on."

"Whose side are _you _on?" I challenge.

"Cato, I just fly the hovercrafts," Crow says. "But you've put our family in a bad spot. You and Spirit - anyway, when the bullets start flying, we're going to be a target. All of us. Who can protect us the best?"

"The Capitol," I say without thinking. When I used to think about the northerners - which wasn't often, honestly - I imagined them as this ragtag collection of people, wearing animal skins and shooting arrows. Certainly not the vicious fighting force I saw in the video. "Do you really think the northerners can do it?"

"This is their best shot," Crow says. "They'll put everything into it."

"But if we pick the Capitol, then -"

"No more Spirit," Crow confirms, knowing what I'm asking before I can even get the question out of my mouth. "So you've got to decide; is she worth that much to you?"

He walks away before I can answer.


	6. This Train

A/N: Thanks to Anla'shok (x 5), writer with no words, and RoseMaple for reviewing.

* * *

Spirit:

The day of the Victory Tour dawns rainy and cold, and despite the near-freezing temperatures, there hasn't yet been a single flake of snow. Back in the north, we would have been snowed in for months by now, and I miss it. There's something open about snow, how you can always see the tracks of the people who've been there before you. The rain washes everything away.

I drag myself out of bed and slide the brace onto my leg, tightening the bolts until it hugs my skin. Then I limp downstairs to wait for Elisheba and the prep team, forgoing breakfast in exchange for the tight, nervous feeling in my chest. It's not unlike the one I felt before dropping into the arena.

The first sign of them comes at about eleven in the morning, a long line of umbrellas snaking up the hill toward the Victor's Village. I know that Lief, over in his house, sees them, too, because the frantic chords on the piano start up again. He's scheduled to play and sing in at least three districts, and he's nervous. I'm especially glad I picked a talent that didn't involve performing in front of large groups of people. I did enough of that in the Games.

In the three months since I began learning to carve, I've managed to complete exactly one piece that meets with both Amber's and my approval. Amber, the sister of the woman I gave the blood to, took on the task of teaching me, and her presence drew other carvers to my empty house in the Victor's Village. Every day since, I've had at least two carvers in my house, working alongside me and nervously helping me refine my technique.

The carving I made is of an ice wolf, sitting on its haunches and howling, nose pointed to the sky. Compared to the others' pieces, it looks pathetic, but it's much better than my other carvings (my attempt at carving people went disastrously awry) and so it's the only one I'm bringing along on the Tour. I'm not sure who's going to see it except me. Even so, I drag it out of the closet where I store my carving materials and set it on the coffee table, trying not to feel too proud of myself.

Elisheba is the first member of my Games team to get through the door. She raises an eyebrow at the prominently displayed carving and then nods approvingly. "I see you found your talent, Spirit."

I shrug.

Elisheba rolls her eyes. "Don't be too modest, Spirit. You look pale. When was your last transfusion?"

"Two weeks," I say. "They're going to give it on the train to District Twelve."

She clucks her tongue disapprovingly. "If they poke a hole in your jacket…"

"I'll make sure to take it off beforehand."

The prep team comes in behind Elisheba, looking distinctly nervous. I haven't seen them since the night of the closing ceremonies, when I passed out and had to be taken back to the Training Center in an ambulance. The doctors never did figure out why I collapsed, and at this point, I don't care. It hasn't happened since, and that's all that matters.

"Hello, Spirit," Medea says guardedly. Marsyas and Julia mutter hellos as well. They haven't changed much - well, Julia's hair is an even lighter shade of blonde. And I think Marsyas has a new tattoo or three. But they don't seem very excited about going on the Victory Tour.

"Medea, Marsyas, Julia," I say coolly. It's obvious that they have a problem. Not everyone in the Capitol is as poised and controlled as Elisheba. But I don't relish spending the next month with these three doing my makeup. I'll do it myself first. "How are you finding District Seven?"

"Wet," Julia mutters. Her hair is losing its curl.

Elisheba steps forward, taking charge. "Marsyas, I want you to deal with her face. Watch the eyebrows when you're plucking. We don't want her bleeding on us. Medea, you've got the nails as usual, and Julia, you're in charge of the hair. And I'm only going to say this once; keep it _simple_."

When not one member of the prep team makes a move toward me, Elisheba heaves a disgusted sigh. "She is not carrying diseases."

"Well, technically I am," I point out. "It's just not anything you can catch."

"You're not helping." Elisheba levels a filthy look at the prep team. "We have an hour until the train rolls out. Move."

I sit down in one of the chairs, balancing my book on the armrest while the prep team begins to work on me. District Seven's only library burned down two years ago during a forest fire, and as a result, the book Cato sent me from District Two is one of the only books to be had. I've read it at least four times by now.

I'm guessing Cato picked the book arbitrarily; if he'd known the subject matter, he probably never would have sent it. It's about a cadre of kids who have an insidious, sometimes-fatal disease. The main character is on all kinds of medication and she has to walk around with an oxygen tank, and you're clearly supposed to sympathize. Unfortunately, the day I started reading the book, the doctors' favorite IV vein collapsed, and I didn't feel too sorry for her. Still, it's a good book. I've thanked Cato for it multiple times.

District Seven and District Two are four hours and a mountain range apart. I'll see Cato this afternoon. I'm looking forward to it, but his family will be on the platform to see him off, and it'll be my first encounter with other members of the Lewis clan. I've spoken to a few of them briefly - mostly when one of them gets to the phone before Cato does - and I can't tell whether they like me or hate me.

I close my eyes as Marsyas begins to pluck at my eyebrows. I'll find out in a few hours.

Elisheba has me take off my brace. She wants me to wear it on the outside of my clothes, and as I put them on, I understand why. I'm dressed all in white, with silver shoes, silver nails, and a silver clip holding back my overlong hair. When I catch a glimpse of my face, I see that my eyes are shadowed with white and blue. As usual, I look slightly frightening.

I slip the brace back onto my leg, readjust it, and stand up just in time to prevent the Capitol crew who've come to move my things from dropping my carving to the floor. I get my hands underneath it just in time. A sharp edge scratches my hand as I set the carving back on its base, and for a moment, I sit there, watching the thin stream of blood trickle out of my skin. Even though it's illogical at this point, I still get nervous at the sight of my own blood.

Elisheba heaves an aggrieved sigh as the chagrined Capitol crew carries the carving outside to a waiting truck, making apologies as they leave. "So clumsy. Are you ready to go?"

I press an adhesive bandage over the scrape and put on the white gloves that she hands me. "Yeah."

I'm surrounded by the blinking lights of cameras as I step out into the rain. A Capitol attendant scurries alongside me, holding an umbrella over my head, but something about that strikes me as wrong, and I take the umbrella and carry it myself.

Lief meets me on the water-soaked front lawn of the Victor's Village. "Ready for this?"

"As I'll ever be."

We ride through the streets of District Seven's main city, crossing the rain-swollen river to reach the train station. The station platform is empty. By winning the Games, we brought District Seven extra food for a year - enough to keep many families from starvation. In exchange, they keep their silence about our roots. The arrangement doesn't extend to braving the torrential rain to bid us goodbye.

The train ride to District Two goes by too fast for me. I can't organize my thoughts. My head is aching and the cut on my hand has yet to scab over. I change the bandage once, then again, and I'm starting to wish that I could have that blood transfusion now. Lief has the TV on, and I catch a glimpse of myself, ghost pale and dressed in white, limping out of my house. I look sick. Maybe I'm always going to look that way.

Now, more than ever, I'm starting to think that Abbess made a mistake in sending me in.

The only sign that we've crossed into District Two is a solitary outpost, manned by two bored-looking Peacekeepers. The train stops for a moment, then lets out a wheeze and continues to move, into the mountains that are District Two's signature landscape. The mountains are covered in snow, and the sky is a high, clear blue. Nothing could be further from District Seven. As the train rolls on through the snow, I can feel myself relaxing. I can understand this place. It reminds me of home.

The sprawl of District Two's main city appears in the distance and Maia gives me the schedule for our brief stop. I won't be dealing with Cato's mentor - he'll be boarding the train from the other side - and Johanna won't be on the platform. It'll just be Cato and I, and Cato's entire family. And of course, the cameras.

The train slides into the station, coming to a silent stop. I can see a row of people standing on the platform, and slightly ahead of them, Cato, bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet. As I look closer at the people behind him, I see that one of them is wearing a white Peacekeeper uniform, and the brief sense of comfort I felt in the mountains instantly evaporates. District Two, perhaps even more than the Capitol, is enemy territory. I cannot allow myself to forget that.

I take a deep breath and step onto the platform, feeling the cold wind race across my cheeks. Cato comes up to me and gives me a hug, more reserved than I was expecting. Maybe his mentor told him to be on his best behavior, or maybe, like me, he doesn't want to give the cameras a good show.

"I missed you," he says into my ear.

"Missed you, too," I answer. Cato takes my hand, lacing his fingers tightly through mine, and leads me over to where his family stands.

His father isn't what I was expecting. I imagined Cato's father as being enormous and muscular, like him, but the only feature they seem to have in common is their blond hair. Cato's father is small and stooped, only a few inches taller than I am, and his face is weary and gaunt. When he shakes my hand, his fingers feel so brittle that I'm afraid I'll snap them.

"Hello, Spirit," Cato's father says, his voice raspy. "I hope you enjoy your tour."

"I will. Thank you," I say, and Cato ushers me along to the next family member in line.

I see the family resemblance between Cato and his mother. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, with a strong jaw and gray eyes. She's pregnant - almost nine months, by the look of it. By the time he gets back from the Victory Tour, Cato will have a younger brother or sister.

She shakes my hand, her grip strong. "I would like to thank you," she says formally, "for saving the life of my son."

"You already did," I answer. "Without the gift you sent in the arena, we wouldn't have made it."

Her grip on my hand tightens to the point of pain, then releases. "Oh, no, Spirit. Ask any mother - there's no way to repay someone after they save your child."

"Mom," Cato says warningly, and he tugs me along the line to his sister, a tall blond girl in a blue dress.

"Spirit, this is Aurelia," Cato says. "She's twelve."

Aurelia smacks him. "I can tell her how old I am, Cato!" She turns back to me. "I'm twelve."

"And you're at the top of your class. Cato told me."

Aurelia grins. "Really? He did?"

"Yeah." I search for something else to say, but I don't think there's going to be a lot of common ground between Aurelia and I. Cato gives a little tug on my hand in the direction of the last person in line, and I scramble for a way to close the conversation. "I hope we can talk more after the Tour."

Aurelia nods. "Me, too." Then, "You're different than you are on TV."

This throws me for a loop. "How so?"

"You're not as mean-looking in real life."

"That's it. Let's go," Cato says, tugging me away from Aurelia. "Sorry," he mutters. "She's smart, but she doesn't know when to shut up."

"It's okay," I say, and then I stop cold, because the person in the Peacekeeper uniform is the last one in line.

"This is Crow, my half-brother," Cato says. "I think you've talked to him before."

Crow looks unlike anyone else in the family. He's tall, like Cato, but gangly, and his hair is black instead of blond. He smiles down at me, then reaches out and pulls me off my feet and into a hug. While he spins me around, he stuffs something - a piece of paper - into the inside pocket of my jacket with one hand.

"If you're going to do something," he says urgently into my ear, "you'd better do it fast."

"Put her down, Crow," I hear Cato says, and suddenly my feet are back on the ground. My head is spinning with questions, and I'm dying to reach into my jacket and pull out the paper, but as my hand twitches up, Crow sees the movement and gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Instead of going for the paper, I smooth out the front of my jacket and smile as though nothing's wrong.

I exchange a few pleasantries with Crow, going over his words in my mind for any hint as to what he meant or what the paper is, but he's said his piece and he's not saying any more. When Cato and I finally board the train and it begins to pull away, his whole family comes to the edge of the track and waves at us. Crow is the only one who doesn't smile.

"So?" Lief says, ambling out of his room toward Cato and I. "How'd it go?"

"All right," Cato says. He turns to me. "Spirit, we need to talk."

"Not now." What was it Crow had said to me? He's a Peacekeeper. It's entirely possible that he found out I'm a northerner, but the question is, why would a Peacekeeper tell a northerner what he did? _If you're going to do something, you'd better do it fast_. What did he mean?

"It's important," Cato insists, and I say, "Yes, it is," before I can stop myself. Now Cato and Lief are both staring at me.

"Spirit, should I have them start your transfusion?" Maia asks, poking her head out of the next car.

I can't do it. "No!" I shout, and I retreat into my room and lock the door.

I pull off my right shoe and throw it into the closet, then crawl in after it, giving myself an excuse to get out of the way of the cameras in my room. Once I'm sure my actions will be hidden, I reach into the inside pocket and draw out the piece of paper that Crow slipped in.

It's an official document; I can tell that much by the prominently displayed Capitol seal. But what is it? I know I don't have much time before this starts to look suspicious, so I scan the paper, searching for whatever it is that Crow wanted me to know. The words and phrases come at me in a rush. _Position has been captured_. _Three thousand extra troops. Heavy snow. Laying tracks. Supply lines_. This document, communication, whatever it is - it's a description of an invasion. But it takes only one word for me to understand what has happened. _North_.

_If you're going to do something, you'd better do it fast. _Because if you don't, the home you're fighting for might not exist for you to come back to.

I crumple up the paper and stuff it into my mouth, knowing that Crow Lewis will take the fall if I'm discovered with it; then I retrieve my shoe, pull it back on, and cross to the window, staring out at the mountains speeding past.

The ruins that mark the border between Panem and my people's lands lie two hundred miles north of District Two. For the last fifty years, the ruins have remained in northern hands, and with good reason - they sit directly in the middle of the only clear path to the northern heartland. I spent three years guarding them. Now the Capitol has taken them, and they're struggling through the snow, laying train tracks, bringing extra troops to crush my people. And I'm a thousand miles away, unable to do a blessed thing about it.

"Spirit?" Cato knocks on the door, and I whip around.

"What?"

"We need to talk."

I stalk across the room, twist the lock, and wrench the door open. "All right, Cato. Let's talk."

My anger is impossible to miss, but either he senses that it's not directed at him or he decides to forge on anyway. "Look," he says, leaning in so that any hallway cameras will be unable to read his lips, "I know why you and Lief are here. And I know where you're from."

So his brother told him. I wouldn't have expected anything less from the wily Peacekeeper. It's something I've noticed about Panem; the people here look after their families and pray for everyone else. But I'll be honest; right now, I am fully expecting to lose Cato as a result of my heritage. Not to mention my plan to bring down Panem.

I try to keep my face blank as I look up into Cato's serious gray eyes. "And?"

He sighs. "I wish you'd told me. I wish you'd trusted me. But I can't blame you. It's what I would have done."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Cato nods. "I guess I'm part of all this now, huh?"

"You don't have to be."

"But you are."

"Yes." Where's he going with this?

"Then I am, too," Cato says simply. He reaches out and embraces me. "Come on, Spirit. Let's go get your blood transfusion done."

When we get to the living room, Lief looks up from his chess game against Elisheba. He must know that our cover, at least in the Lewis family, has been blown, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Maybe he figured it was inevitable. "Hell, Spirit, you look sick. What took you so long?"

I give him a quick update on the invasion - and feel like a terrible person in the process for reducing our plight to a three-sentence summary - and the blood slowly drains from Lief's face. Elisheba looks from him to me and back again, and I feel sure that she has at least some idea of what's going on, but instead of saying anything, she calls in a doctor. The doctor starts to set up my transfusion, but it's immediately evident that something is off when she misses two IV sticks in a row.

"Hey," I snap, pulling my arm away from her. "Let's not blow the only good vein left in my arm!"

"My apologies," she snaps back. She grabs my arm, moves it back within reach, and twists the tourniquet even tighter. This time she manages to get a vein, but only because all of them are protruding out about an inch above my skin. Cato and Lief are wearing identical expressions of shock.

"Is it always like that?" Lief says after the doctor stalks out.

"No." Lief is mortally afraid of needles, but after four months of transfusions, I'm used to it.

Elisheba sighs. "I should have known better than to call Emilia. We served together in the north. She's quite a nationalist."

Cato is still looking at the door the doctor left through. "Is everyone like that?" he asks me.

"Most people aren't," I say, knowing instinctively what he means. "Either they're scared, or they just don't care. People like her are a rarity."

He seems unsettled. "Speaking of people acting weird, I hope my family didn't scare you off."

"They seemed nice," I say. And they did. I'm starting to think I have the wrong impression of District Two - I imagine them all as a tribe of gun-toting Peacekeepers. "I don't understand why your brother joined the Peacekeepers, though."

"He's a mechanic, not a soldier," Cato says. "Good thing, too. He can barely shoot in a straight line."

"District Two's really beautiful," I tell him. "I liked the mountains."

"Yeah, we don't mine out the ones near the train station," Cato says. "Got to keep things looking pretty for the cameras."

"We don't worry about that in District Seven," Lief pipes up. "Nothing pretty there. Just clear-cuts and rain."

"Lief," I say, watching the chessboard as Elisheba unobtrusively captures Lief's one remaining bishop, "you might want to eavesdrop less and pay attention to your game more."

_I can't believe Aliya lost the border_, Lief says as he attempts to salvage the chess game. _I guess they must have hit her hard. Do you think she's still alive?_

_Depends on if she was smart enough to retreat when she had the chance_, I answer. But I know that if I were the one guarding the border ruins, I would have fought to the last soldier to keep the holding out of the Capitol's hands. I've just got to hope Aliya - one of Lief's many cousins - managed to swallow her pride.

_We need a plan_.

_We've got a month and nine districts to pull something together_, I remind him. There are a thousand ways to cripple an invasion, but most of them require time and access to the main base, and we don't have either of those things. Lief and I will only have one shot - during our stop in District Two - and by then, nearly a month from now, the invasion will have advanced considerably. Whatever we do, it will have to be incredibly destructive.

I glance sideways at Cato, who's observing the chess match and - to Lief's dismay - giving him advice. Even if Cato says he's on my side, I can't imagine that he understands what defying the Capitol will entail for him. He's vulnerable in a way that Lief and I aren't. His family is easily within the Capitol's reach, and as Lief and I try to begin the rebellion, I'm going to do everything I can to keep them out of President Snow's crosshairs.

By the time we're served dessert after an incredibly awkward dinner with our mentors, Lief has a plan. Unfortunately, it's not going to be easy, because it involves smuggling sometimes large and unwieldy objects out of several districts. Wiring from District Three. Scrap metal from District Six. Power sources from District Five. Bombs. At least three of them. One to disable the supply lines at their source, and the others to plant on trains headed north.

In battle training up north, we learn how to construct rudimentary firebombs and grenades, devices that will explode seconds after being triggered. Creating a bomb with a delayed detonation is more difficult, and Lief is one of the few people in the north who knows how to build them. He's always had an affinity for explosives.

We head into one of the living rooms to talk it over. There's only one camera with an audio hookup, and Lief manages to disable it by balling up his jacket and stuffing it into the center of the small microphone. This way we can talk without fear of being overheard.

"Anything we need in Twelve?" I ask him. District Two is the final stop on the Victory Tour before we all split up for home, but I'd rather not spend my brief stay in District Twelve crawling around in a coal mine.

Lief snorts. "Besides the star-crossed lovers, you mean? No."

"So what's my part?"

"Figure out our way in," Lief orders. "They're going to keep you as far away from the center as they possibly can, so all the main roads will be guarded. We need a -"

"A back way?" Cato appears from behind one of the couches. "I can do that."

Lief and I both startle. "No," Lief says. "We can handle it."

"Yeah, right. I've spent my whole life in District Two and you've never even put a foot off the platform. I can get you to the base," Cato says. "I want to help."

_We can't let him help_, Lief says. _He's not in this to take out the Capitol, he's in it for you. Figure out a way to say no without pissing him off_.

"Okay," I say. "Here's how it happens. We all gather the materials. Lief builds. You tell me how to get through. And I infiltrate. Will that work?"

"Cato," Lief says carefully, "you do know what we're doing, right? It's a little thing called treason."

"The Capitol shouldn't be attacking you," Cato says stubbornly. "You've never done anything to them. They're doing something wrong, and I don't see anything wrong with trying to stop them."

"Fine. Okay. You're in," Lief says. "Now we've got to drop it. I bet some audiotech in the Capitol is starting to get suspicious."

He removes the jacket muffling the microphone and lets out an exaggerated yawn. "I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Have to have a lot of rest, or I'm not going to be able to deal with the lovebirds tomorrow."

"Me, too," Cato says. "See you in the morning, Spirit."

He kisses me goodnight and heads to the sleeping car - it must be a sleeping pill night - and then I'm alone in the living room. A nervous-looking Capitol attendant comes in and switches on an electric fireplace as the heavy gray sky continues to darken. I know I won't be able to sleep tonight. Even the steady motion of the train only serves to remind me of other trains on other tracks, steadily, inexorably moving their way north.


	7. Dreams of War

A/N: Thanks to Anla'shok, RoseMaple, and writer with no words for reviewing.

* * *

Cato:

I sleep late, and Brutus decides to wake me up by sending an attendant to pour a bucket of cold water over my head. I actually have my hands around the guy's throat before I realize that it's not Brutus I'm strangling. Typical . He can't even do his own dirty work. And it's only the beginning of what's shaping up to be a strange day.

The swearing starts when I'm brushing my teeth, and whoever's doing it really has a set of lungs on them. They're not in this car - Lief's and Spirit's rooms are both empty - but I can still hear every word crystal clear. After a few sentences, it stops, and gets replaced by the sound of someone playing the guitar. This goes on for a few more minutes, and then, as I'm leaving my room, there's a fantastic burst of cursing that sounds like it's coming from further up the train.

I follow the sound into one of the dining rooms. Lief and Spirit are both there, and Lief has a guitar in his hand. He's winding up to throw it at the wall.

"Calm down," Spirit tells him.

"Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down when -" Lief breaks off his rant when he sees me and sets the guitar back on the table. "Oh, hey, Cato."

"Hey."

"It appears that you two have a civilizing effect on each other," Spirit comments dryly.

Not exactly. It's just that neither of us wants to look stupid in front of the other one. "I heard somebody swearing. Which one of you was that?"

"I think you can guess, although I don't know what reason he has to be swearing," Spirit says. "He didn't have to wake up at six o'clock this morning so he could get the hair ripped out of his arms and legs."

Lief ignores her. "It's my talent," he explains. "I have to sing a song and play on this idiotic instrument -" he points at the guitar "- and I'm not ready at all!"

"You're not performing until District Nine," Spirit reminds him. "And it's not that bad. Personally, I think your piano playing is worse."

Lief gives her a withering look. "Thanks for your support." He turns to me. "What's your talent?"

I don't know any victor in District Two who has a talent. "I don't know."

"Figures," Lief says disgustedly. "District Two always gets a free pass."

"It's probably because things actually happen in District Two," says Spirit's mentor, breezing into the room. "Nothing ever happens in Seven. You have to have a talent to keep from dying of boredom."

"So what's your talent, old bag?" Spirit asks.

Johanna winks. "Insanity," she says, and she leaves again.

The scenery's changed a lot. Last night we were traveling through fields, and now the world speeding past outside is made up mostly of gently rolling hills, covered in snow. We'll be in District Twelve by afternoon. And if I have to listen to Lief's singing the whole way there, I'm going to go off the deep end.

Spirit looks like she feels the same way, but of course, she's been listening to it for months now. "Lief, I'm begging you, sing something else."

"This is what I'll be singing in District Nine."

"I know. But I'm losing my mind here. How about a little variety?"

"If you want variety, you sing something."

"No thanks. I already have my talent," Spirit responds with a smirk.

Yeah, her carving. "Where is it?"

Spirit points into the corner of the dining room, at a three-foot wooden statue of a howling wolf. I saw it earlier, but I didn't know it was hers; I thought it was some kind of decoration. "Spirit, that's really good."

"By my standards, it is," Spirit says. "By District Seven's standards, not so much."

"Yeah, it's just terrible," Lief says sweetly, obviously getting back at Spirit for her comment about his piano playing.

The rest of the trip to District Twelve passes quickly. I play chess with Lief and get soundly beaten; then I play chess with Spirit and get stuck in a stalemate. It starts snowing harder. By District Two standards, it's not bad, but according to the weather warning on the television, it counts as a blizzard.

There's an unreasonably long stop at District Twelve's station, because the cameras can't seem to get enough of the star-crossed lovers. Nothing's changed in the last four months. They're still acting like a couple of newlyweds.

"What's the bet they have kids soon?" Lief says, watching the spectacle.

"I think the odds are in their favor."

For some reason, Spirit shudders. "I hope they're smarter than that."

"Do you not like kids or something?"

"It doesn't matter. I shouldn't have said anything." And Spirit vanishes back into the sleeping car, leaving Lief and I to watch District Twelve and their entourage board the train. Even after Spirit's gone, I stare in the direction she went, and I must look confused, because Lief takes it upon himself to explain.

"It's not that she doesn't like kids. It's just that where we come from, a lot of people die in childbirth. People like Spirit," Lief says.

"You mean shape-changers?" I say in a low voice, looking down so the cameras can't read my lips.

Lief nods. "It's how Spirit's mother died. The baby was stillborn and her mom died delivering it."

"What about her dad?"

"Killed by Peacekeepers about twelve years ago," Lief says. "She wasn't lying when she said she was an orphan. It's pretty common. You can't throw a rock without hitting an orphan back home."

Lief stops talking as District Twelve comes in, accompanied by their mentor and their stylists. Lover Boy looks up, sees us, and smiles. I don't smile back.

"Come on," I say to Lief. "Let's go."

Lief glances at them and nods. He picks up the chessboard and we leave. We end up sitting on the floor in front of Spirit's room and playing chess until she comes back out and wins the game for me in three moves.

Dinner is separated into victors and everybody else. We eat in our own dining room with Katniss and Lover Boy. And Lover Boy just won't shut up.

"What's it like in District Seven?" he asks Spirit, who clearly wants to be left alone with her soup. She gulps down a mouthful and looks up.

"Rainy," she says. "And District Twelve?"

"It's nice, I guess," Lover Boy says. "The climate isn't easily described. How's your hip?"

Spirit scoots her chair back and props her injured leg up on the table. The silver brace is clearly visible against her clothes. "As good as it can be, I suppose. What about yours?"

"It works." Lover Boy props up his leg as well.

"Cut it out, Lover Boy," I snap. The plastic and metal looks disgusting clamped onto human skin. "Nobody wants to see your freak-show leg."

"Don't talk to him like that." Katniss looks up from her plate. "He's twice the person you are."

"Yeah, that's news to me," I shoot back. "Tell it to someone who cares, would you?"

"You're a real piece of work," Lover Boy says to me.

"Like you're so special -"

"Like any of you are," Spirit says sharply. She shoves her plate away. "Don't you ever wonder why nothing ever changes around here? You're all so busy arguing that -"

She looks like she's about to say more, but a warning look from Lief shuts her up. She levels a glare at the tributes from District Twelve to get the point across and then goes back to eating. Weird. In the arena, I always got the idea that Lief was following Spirit's lead, but out in the real world, Lief must be in charge.

He clears his throat. "I know we were enemies in the arena," he says, "but that's over now, and we're going to be stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. Maybe we should try to get along."

"Okay," Lover Boy says readily. The rest of us aren't so sure. Spirit and Katniss glance at each other like they're sizing up opponents, and then they both nod. That leaves me, and with everybody else agreeing, I can't exactly say no. Unfortunately, now that we've agreed not to hate each other, nobody can seem to come up with anything to talk about, and the rest of dinner crawls by in uneasy silence.

We head back to the sleeping car in single file and go into our rooms. I hear the clicks as everyone locks their doors, and then, after a second of hesitation, I lock mine, too. Maybe that'll keep Brutus from arranging any more wakeup calls. Not that I'll be needing one. Tonight is not a sleeping pill night, and after tossing and turning for an hour, I end up sprawled on my stomach, watching the glowing numbers on the clock slide past.

At about two-thirty in the morning, when I've finally fallen into a sort of stupor, I hear the first scream. It just about scares me out of my skin; as it is, I startle and fall off the bed onto the floor. A second scream pierces the air, definitely female. I scramble up and run for the door, wrestling open the lock and charging out into the hall.

Spirit and Lief are standing in the hallway. Both of them look like they've just woken up. "You heard it, too?"

"I don't know who didn't," Lief mumbles, rubbing his eyes. "Katniss sure has a set of lungs on her."

As if on cue, Katniss screams again, and this time, there's movement from the last door in the sleeping car. Lover Boy wrenches it open, tears into the hall, and runs to the only remaining room, slapping on the door with the flat of his hand. "Katniss! Katniss, let me in!"

The lock clicks open and Lover Boy disappears into the dark, the door shutting behind him.

"What was that all about?" I ask.

"Nightmares," Lief says.

"So? We all have them. None of us howl the roof down like she was doing."

Lief yawns. "I don't care why she's doing it, just as long as it doesn't happen every night. I'm going back to bed."

Spirit levels her gaze at me. "You should go back to sleep, Cato. You look exhausted."

"So do you." Actually, she doesn't just look exhausted; she looks physically sick. But she just shrugs and tells me she's fine. And instead of going back to bed, she sets off down the train. I stay awake the rest of the night, and I never hear her come back to her room.

By morning, we're in District Eleven. The weather's changed; when I open the window in my bedroom, a blast of warm air hits me full in the face. Winter in District Eleven feels like summer in District Two.

"It's all relative," Lief says after I tell him this. He and I came out of our rooms about the same time. I do a quick check to see if Spirit came back without me noticing, but the door to her room is still ajar. "Back where I come from, our summer is probably your winter."

"Yeah, right. I bet you don't get half as much snow as we do."

"You'd be surprised."

I'm not looking forward to today. I may not have personally killed either of the tributes from District Eleven, but both of them were killed by my allies. I feel like I'm doing something bad by even being in District Eleven at all. Then I look over at Lief, who looks like he's going to be sick, and decide that as bad as I think it is for me today, he'll have it worse.

"I never thanked you for saving my life," I say.

"When did I do that?"

"When you killed Thresh."

If it's possible, Lief looks even worse. "Don't thank me. The only reason I killed him is because Spirit would have killed me if I let you die. It's not something to thank me for."

"So I guess you're not too happy about today."

"Are you kidding? His _family _is going to be there. I'm going to have to say something and look at them and -" Lief shudders. "You'll see. Once we get to a district whose tributes you killed."

We're headed to the dining room, but for some reason, Lief stops in the middle of a living room. He crosses the room and peers behind a couch. "Spirit, I hate to break it to you, but you've got a padded cell with your name on it if you keep doing this."

"Katniss is screaming in her sleep, and I'm the crazy one?" Spirit says sharply.

"Next time just sleep on the couch. Hiding behind it is weird." Lief waves me forward, pointing down into the space between the couch and the wall. "Guess what, Cato? I found Spirit."

Spirit emerges from behind the couch. "Morning, Cato. Lief, you don't know what you're talking about."

Lief rolls his eyes. "Just trying to help."

A glance around the table at breakfast tells me that nobody slept well. Katniss looks especially bad; her arms and face are shiny and red. Everyone else has dark circles under their eyes, and Haymitch Abernathy, the mentor from Twelve, is knocking back a glass of red wine. Lief's mentor has a vacant look in his eyes, and his head keeps falling forward. Brutus is the last to show up. He's made it clear that he thinks District Eleven is a waste of space.

After breakfast, they send us off to our stylists. Lief, Lover Boy, and I are all in suits, and we're done fast, so we have to sit around for half an hour waiting for the girls to appear. Katniss comes out first in an orange dress; then, five minutes later, Spirit appears. She's wearing a black dress and there's a silver ring on her left hand. Suddenly, I remember that I still haven't given her back her ring. I've been wearing it around my neck for months. But as I'm giving it back, her stylist sweeps into the room.

"She can't wear that," the woman says. "It'll interrupt the flow of her ensemble."

Whatever that means. "Look, I'm just trying to -"

"It's okay," Spirit says. "You can keep the ring for a little longer."

She takes it, threads it back onto the chain, and fastens it around my neck. Then we're all being hustled off the train and into an armored van for transport. The mentors take it in stride, but District Twelve's Capitol escort gets offended. "Really. You'd think we were all criminals," she huffs.

Spirit and Lief glance at each other, and Lief starts laughing. He's starting to get hysterical, but then Spirit elbows him and drives all the air out of his lungs. District Twelve sits in depressed silence.

When we finally reach the Justice Building, we don't have much time before we go onstage. They line us up - District Twelve, District Seven, and me in the back - and start clipping the microphones onto us. I reach forward and take Spirit's hand. She gives my fingers a quick squeeze and then we walk onstage.

The best thing that can be said for the ceremony is that it's over fast, and I don't have to avoid looking at the tributes' families for too long. But something strange happens as we're ushered off the stage; an old man whistles something, and then everyone at the rally makes this hand gesture. I recognize it only because I was watching District Twelve's reaping; it's the same thing Katniss Everdeen did before they took her away.

"Bad move," Lief mumbles as they hustle us back into the Justice Building, our arms full of flowers. Before I can ask him what the hell he means, there's a pileup in front of us. Katniss and Peeta are trying to turn back around, and Spirit's sandwiched between Lief and the door frame.

"Where are you going?" Spirit says.

"To get my flowers. I forgot them."

As Spirit shifts sideways to let them through, there's a loud noise from back onstage, sharp and short, that echoes back into the hall. Maybe District Twelve thinks it's a car backfiring or something. But Spirit and Lief are soldiers, and I grew up in the Peacekeeper district - and we all know it's a gunshot.

Now it's Spirit trying to shove her way through. "I'll go check -"

Lief blocks her path and puts a hand on her shoulder, muffling her microphone. "You're in enough trouble as it is. Cato will go."

I dump my flowers into Lief's arms and turn around, peering at the stage. I can make out a slumped form on the ground, blood dripping from a hole in the side of its head. A Peacekeeper stands beside the body, and two more Peacekeepers are bringing another person onstage. With a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realize that I recognize her. She was on the families' platform; she's Thresh's younger sister. As they pull her up onto the stage and force her to her knees, she catches my eye.

Maybe if I stepped out now, I could stop this. But I hesitate a second too long, and the Peacekeeper puts the barrel of his gun against the side of her head. She shuts her eyes. And then the Peacekeeper pulls the gun away and hits her across the face with it. She drops like a stone, but she's alive, and as the Peacekeeper holsters his gun, there's a blank look in his eyes.

A hand closes around my upper arm, and I jump. It's another Peacekeeper. "You shouldn't be here," she says coldly, and she drags me back toward the Justice Building.

"Let go," I snap, wrestling out of her grip. She grabs me again, harder, and I can feel her nails pierce the fabric of my suit. Then I look down at her hand and see that they aren't nails - they're claws, coming out of a heavily furred hand. "What the -"

"Hush." The shape-changer shoves me in the direction of the Justice Building. I wonder who the northerners had to torture to get this far into Panem, who they had to kill to get this uniform. If they're under attack, how did they manage to make another infiltration? I squint into the shape-changer's face, see that it's shining with sweat and smudged with dried blood, and I know that this wasn't a planned infiltration. This was desperate.

At the door to the Justice Building, I'm met by Lief and Spirit. Lief stares into the shape-changer's face and swears. "Aliya -"

"Do something," the shape-changer - Aliya - gasps. "They're hitting us too hard. The army's in retreat. That's the last thing I heard before I got out of transmission range."

"How did you get down here?" Spirit says.

"Captured," Aliya whispers. "They're taking us alive. For experiments. I only just got away."

I slip through the doors and move to close them, but Spirit shoves her foot in, keeping the doors open a crack. "What's your plan, Aliya?"

"Hide. Heal. Get home." Aliya coughs wetly into her hand. "I'll have good cover tonight. I can make it out."

"I know you will. Tell Abbess something for me when you see her. Tell her I'll stop them," Spirit says urgently. "I'll do something."

The door slams shut and Spirit slumps against them, her face ashen. She looks like she's about to collapse again, but Lief grips her arm and pulls her forward. "We can't fall behind, Spirit. Katniss and Peeta are already ahead of us." He glances at me as I take Spirit's other side. "What did you see out there?"

"They shot the whistler. And they pistol-whipped Thresh's younger sister."

"That Peacekeeper was planning to shoot her. I deflected him. I could do that, at least." Lief sighs, then pins me with a serious gaze. "If they figure out you're helping us, that could be your family in the square. It could be your sister being shot."

"I know," I snap at him, but somehow, I can't see President Snow risking District Two. Shooting a victor's family, in a district where the victors are practically gods, would be stupid.

Lief shakes his head, but then he seems to forget about me and turns back to Spirit. "And we've got bad news, Spirit, President Snow visited Katniss. Told her to toe the line or he kills her cousin and the rest of her family."

"He wouldn't," I say confidently. "She's a victor. He can't do that."

Spirit opens her mouth to say something, but then a door ahead of us opens and Lover Boy barrels out, looking like he's either about to break something or start crying. He almost runs into us, then stops and stares. "What kept you?"

"Spirit collapsed again," Lief lies easily. "What happened to _you_?"

Lover Boy presses his lips together, then shoots a glance at me and decides not to have his outburst here. "Nothing," he says, and he vanishes down the corridor.

I shake my head. "He's such a girl. What were you going to say, Spirit?"

"I was going to say that you don't understand this. You don't understand what it costs to fight back," Spirit says. "You can't even imagine."

"Maybe I'll figure it out."

Spirit closes her eyes, and for a second, I wonder if she's actually passed out. Then she opens them again, and I find myself wondering if every northerner looks so weary. "No, Cato, I hope you don't. I hope you never do."

Dinner at the Justice Building, with a bunch of important people who drink too much and shake our hands. Then it's the train again. Katniss screaming at night, me taking a sleeping pill, Spirit walking endless laps up and down the train. Johanna and Brutus have a shouting match in one of the living rooms that ends in Brutus smashing a mirror, and Spirit accidentally steps in the glass. In the morning, I follow a trail of bloody footprints to the kitchen, where I find Spirit sitting on the counter with her foot in the sink, trying to extract a shard with a pair of cooking tongs.

"We're not in the arena any longer," I tell her. "Call the medic."

"I don't trust her." Spirit pulls out the shard and lets it fall with a clatter into the sink. "And I can do this on my own."

She binds up the cut in a towel and walks away. Later, on the stage in District Ten, I barely notice a limp, even though her foot must be hurting. And at night, she's back to walking. Did Crow telling her about the invasion help her or make her crazy? It must be torture for her to know that Peacekeepers are marching through her homeland and be unable to do anything about it. There are Peacekeepers on the train - for our protection, they say, although who would hurt us? - and once or twice, I catch her looking at them as though she'd like nothing better than to slit their throats.

It's a long way between District Ten and District Nine - another day and a night. The scenery changes almost hourly, but by this point, no one's watching. Lover Boy sets up an easel and begins to paint. Katniss watches him. Lief obsessively plays his guitar. I read. And Spirit, after a few hours of sitting and doing nothing, gets up and begins to walk the train once again.

Lover Boy looks up from his easel. "Why is she doing that?"

"She wants to feel like she's accomplishing something," Lief says. I've stopped questioning why Lief always seems to know what Spirit's thinking. "We can't all paint. Speaking of which, what are you working on?"

Lover Boy turns the easel toward us. "See for yourself."

It's us, on the Cornucopia moments before the hovercraft arrived. It must be painted from Lover Boy's perspective, because he's not in the picture. There's Katniss, her hand stained purple from the berries; Lief already on his feet; and me covered in blood, cradling Spirit's limp body. We don't look much like victors. Katniss and I both wear identical desperate expressions, and of course, Spirit is unconscious.

I spent years dreaming of my victory in the Games. Years thinking about what it would be like the moment the trumpets sounded and the announcer said my name. It was nothing like I'd thought it would be, and not just because Spirit was dying in my arms. I'd expected to be happy. Instead I was just glad that it was over at last.

"It's good," I tell Lover Boy - probably the first nice thing I've ever said to him. He looks shocked.

"Thanks."

At dinner, Lief and Lover Boy and I actually manage to have a conversation. I'd say we're making progress on the not-hating-each-other front, except that Katniss doesn't say a word the whole time and Spirit bolts down her dinner at top speed and is back to walking in ten minutes. I head back to my room right after dinner and spend two hours listening to footsteps going back and forth outside my door before I decide to do something about it. I leave my room just as Spirit vanishes into the next car, and I have to run and catch up with her in one of the storage cars.

"I've never been in here before," I say by way of greeting. Spirit turns around.

"Cato." She glances around the storage room and says, "This is where they keep Lover Boy's paintings. He draws the mutts a lot. Look behind you."

I turn around and let out a yell of shock. Propped up against the wall a few feet from me is a huge canvas with a leaping wolf mutt painted on it. Spirit inspects the painting. "I don't know why he does that."

"Why do you spend so much time walking?"

"It's something to do." Spirit sets off again. "Come on, Cato. If you want to talk, let's not do it in here."

We end up sitting on the couch in one of the living rooms. Spirit leans back into the cushions and covers a yawn with her hand. "I'm tired."

"So sleep."

"No."

I'm not even going to ask why not. "What do you dream about that's so scary, then?"

Spirit doesn't look up. "War," she says flatly,

"Really?"

"What else is there?" She glances at me, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, I don't know." I roll my eyes. "The Hunger Games, maybe?"

"It's the same thing." Spirit slides the black-stoned ring off her finger and sets it to spinning on the table. "But no. I don't dream about the Games."

It never occurred to me that the reason Spirit walks the train at night might not have anything to do with the Games. I don't have to wonder why Katniss shrieks in her sleep, or why Lover Boy cries, or why I down sleeping pills every other night. The Games are the only thing we have to be scared of. Lief doesn't have nightmares, or if he does, he's not dumb enough to talk about them. But he and Spirit grew up in the north, and both of them were in the training video Crow showed me. What happened to them up there?

"My brother said you were a soldier," I say carefully.

The ring falls to the table with a clatter, and Spirit dispassionately picks it up and starts it spinning again. "A commander, actually." Her eyes flick up to the corner where I know there's a camera hidden.

Suddenly I realize how stupid I've been. "Sorry I asked."

"Why? It's not as if you're telling them anything they don't already know."

I study her for a second. "What's it like to be a soldier?"

Spirit laughs. "What do you mean, Cato? You know what it's like to fight."

"Not in an army. I'm guessing there's a difference."

"It's like an alliance," Spirit says after a second. Then she shakes her head. "No, that's not right. It's different than an alliance. The alliances in the arena - you just stick together until you can make it on your own. In an army, you'll die without the others."

"You need each other," I say without thinking.

"Yes." Spirit stares out the window at the speeding night, and it's like I'm not here any more. She's thinking about something else. "It was like a family, you know? We played jokes on each other; one time, they busted the zipper on my tent so I couldn't get out in the morning. I got back at them, though. I soaked their spare uniforms in the river and let them freeze overnight."

"Sounds like fun," I say, because she's smiling like it's a happy memory.

"It was, sometimes."

"Was it scary?"

Spirit shifts uncomfortably on the couch. "Ever heard of battle mind, Cato?"

"Yeah. They wouldn't shut up about it in training. I used to be great at it. Once the adrenaline gets going, it's -" I stop because I can't think of how to describe it.

"In an army, that's the last thing you want," Spirit says. She scoops the ring off the table and slides it back onto her finger. "You don't need heroes; you need soldiers. I guess what you want to be is numb. Like it doesn't matter if you die, because the group matters more than you do."

She sighs. "As you might imagine, not everybody can do it."

"Could you?"

"Yeah, for years," Spirits says, and suddenly, she can't meet my eyes. "And then one day, I couldn't do it any more."

"Why not?"

"It only works," she says quietly, "if nothing else matters to you."

Suddenly, she stands up, anger flickering across her face. "You know what, Cato? You're out. You can't be part of this any more."

"Part of what?" The change of subject coupled with her fury equals me having no idea what's going on - and then I get it. "No. You can't - this won't - it's not going to work without me!"

"I'm sure I can manage to walk from the Justice Building to the train station on my own," Spirit snaps, and she turns to leave. "I don't need your help!"

"Yes you do!" I grab her arm and pull her back. "I want to help -"

"You don't know what they'll do to you," Spirit says. "They'll find out, and then they'll make you wish you'd never met us. They'll make you wish you'd never met me."

"I'm not going to wish that." I reach up with my free hand and touch the red-stoned ring, still on the chain around my neck.

"If I let you do this, you will." Spirit twists her arm free of my grip and walks away.


	8. Chain Reaction

A/N: Thanks to Anla'shok, RoseMaple, Guest, and Sof for reviewing, and sorry about the large gap between updates. I had other responsibilities I needed to take care of, but I'm glad to be getting back to this and posting it.

* * *

Spirit:

The Victory Tour is only a month. Lief keeps repeating this fact to me whenever he has a chance; at breakfast, onstage, at the dinners, inside my head on the nights when I walk the train. Only a month. It feels like longer, and we're barely half way through. District Nine, District Eight. I see the fury in the eyes of the citizens at the rallies, and I wish I could harness that rage and turn it into a weapon to crush the Capitol. But they would never follow me. The name on their lips - on everyone's - is Katniss Everdeen.

The girl from District Twelve doesn't scream in her sleep any more. I think this has less to do with her healing mental state than with Peeta's constant presence. They're always together, holding hands, arms around each other's waists, heads leaning on each other's shoulders. But with every district that vanishes behind us, the shadow of fear on their faces grows. Katniss must know that the rebellion is rising despite her efforts to stop it. It's impossible to miss. I wonder if she can feel the Capitol's iron fist slowly closing around her throat. I know I do.

The victors have separated back into their pre-Games groupings. Katniss and Peeta. Lief and I. Cato, on his own again. He hasn't said a word to me since the night we left District Ten. He hasn't said a word to anyone, actually. He spends most of his time in his room, only emerging for meals and stops in other districts. I don't know how Cato got our relationship and the plan to stop the invasion tangled up in his head, but he seems to think that they're mutually inclusive concepts, like one can't exist without the other. Because I don't want him involved in the plan, he thinks I don't like him any longer.

I try not to let myself worry about it. It's better that he's angry with me because he's no longer part of the plan, than that he hates me because his family was killed for his involvement. His parents love him. His younger sister deserves a chance at her life before the Capitol comes down on them. I'm not going to be the one to put them in the line of fire. That's what I should have told Cato, but there were cameras and I didn't think of it, and now he's not talking to me.

"What happened to him?" Katniss asks no one in particular after Cato storms off the stage in District Eight, shoving past Peeta and nearly knocking him over.

"Who cares?" Peeta says as he rights himself. "We've done our best. I think he's just going to hate us forever."

"I thought -" Katniss starts, but then she glances at me and appears to think better of what she was about to say. "Never mind."

Cato's mentor walks by, his face painted with a smirk that he's not even trying to conceal. He and Johanna have only one thing they agree upon; that the split between Cato and I is a good thing.

At least with Cato no longer by my side, the cameras tend to leave me alone. I'm not sure if President Snow ordered it - mutants don't belong on television - or if I'm just not very interesting when I'm not one half of a whole. It doesn't matter. The absence of the cameras gives Lief and I time to talk. District Six - railroad - is the first place where we can begin to gather materials for the bombs. We need scrap metal to make casings, and the rail yards of District Six are the only place where the metal won't be missed.

"How are you planning to do it?" Lief asks me.

"At the party, I'll pretend to faint or something and say I need fresh air," I recite. "Then I'll just wander off. You'll have to cover for me if anyone asks."

Lief waves his hand impatiently. "Fine. And where are you going to hide it?"

"There's heavy snow in District Six," I say. "I'll have a coat, and I don't think anyone will strip-search me."

"What about metal detectors?" The closer we get to District Six and our first objective, the more paranoid Lief becomes. It doesn't matter how much I remind him that we've been careful, and that the Capitol believes that their invasion is still a secret. He still believes that we're going to be found out - or more accurately, that he's going to be found out. It only takes one undercover agent to destroy a nation. Valentine taught us that.

"If I go through one, it'll get set off. I'll just say it's my brace and that I can't walk without it. They won't make me take it off." _I hope_.

Lief shrugs. Even in District Eight, one of the southernmost districts, the bite of winter is still in the air, and he tugs his jacket tightly around himself. "I think Johanna knows what we're doing."

"She doesn't care. She thinks we're spinning our wheels."

"Spirit, she asked me what we were planning to do with the bomb. She _knows_."

"So?" I don't know what the problem is. Out of all the mentors, I think Johanna is the most likely to sympathize with us. During one of my carving lessons, Amber told me that Johanna came back from the Games to find her parents dead, killed in an accident on one of the logging runs- although no one in District Seven believes it was really an accident. Nobody knows what Johanna did to anger the Capitol, but they all got the message. Toe the line or else. "She's known I'm not from Panem since before the Games. If she was going to tell, she would have done it earlier. Relax, Lief. It'll be fine. Let's go back inside, I'm freezing."

"There's one more thing," Lief says.

"What?"

"The hangman," Lief says. "Who's it going to be?"

Northerners aren't known for assigning blame, but the soldiers have an exemption. In every field strategy, every operation, someone is chosen to take the fall if it goes wrong. Taking the fall usually involves answering to Abbess and the elders, which is a frightening prospect even if you've been successful. We call the person who takes the blame the hangman. In the unofficial rules of the northerner army, members of the unit are supposed to rotate being the hangman, but my unit never did. I would always volunteer to be the hangman, and right now is no exception.

"I'll do it."

Lief shakes his head. "No. It should be me. I'm building the bomb. It's my plan. I take the fall."

I roll my eyes, exasperated. "Lief, if they catch me stealing power cells in District Five, it's not going to make much sense for you to take the blame."

Whoever is chosen as the hangman has to make their story convincing. People have to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that the mistake was yours and yours alone. There are mind-readers among the elders, so the hangman must be skilled at hiding their thoughts. Of course, that won't be a problem in Panem, and Lief is by far the better liar, but he's still undercover and that's more important than anything.

"You always take the blame," Lief complains. "Even the time during target practice when Valentine shot me, you said you did it. Why should I let you?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Besides, they've already got me. If you're not careful, they'll catch you, too." I sigh. "And Lief, you've got people to go back to after this is over. Don't risk that."

"After it's over," Lief repeats. "So you think we can win?"

"I have to."

He sighs, too. "All right, Spirit. You're the hangman. But this is the last time I'm letting you do it. Next time, it's my turn."

There's not going to be a next time, and even if there was, I would never let Lief be the hangman. I believe that the job of hangman should go to the person who has the least to lose, and between Lief and I, that will always be me.

The theft in District Six goes off without a hitch. I fake a collapse, sneak out, and return half an hour later with some hollowed-out crossties stuffed under my jacket. Despite Lief's fears, there are no metal detectors, and we smuggle the casings onto the train and stuff them inside a couch cushion in a living room no one uses. We can't start building the bombs until after District Three.

In District Five, I run into trouble - read Peacekeepers - and I have to stuff the power cells into my mouth to keep them hidden. Once the Peacekeepers escort me back to the party, I escape to the bathroom, spit them out, and pass them off to Lief during a dance. I'm starting to think that the Capitol knows what I'm doing. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

District Four. District Three. Skip District Two, because it's Cato's district and they'll be throwing us a party after we go to the Capitol. District One. Glimmer's mother is as beautiful as her daughter was. I wonder if they fixed Glimmer's body up before they sent her home. Even if they did, it probably wouldn't matter. Her parents were watching the Games. They saw what she looked like.

It's only after District One, when we're on the way back to the Capitol, that Lief tells me the bad news.

"We're good to go on the presents," he says. Lief has a macabre sense of humor. "They'll work fine."

"So what's the problem?" I'm about to start a carving, and I'm studying the wood, trying to decide what I want to do with it.

"We don't have a timer." Lief rubs his eyes. "Without a timer, I can't set up the delayed detonation. It'll blow up right in your face. The plan won't work."

"Can't you just take -" I stop talking as Cato walks past, a look of black rage on his face. "Can't you just take the clock out of your room?"

"They'll know it's missing."

I lean back in my chair, the reality of the situation sinking in. It's possible that our thievery in the districts has gone unnoticed, but a missing clock from the train will set off alarm bells. "Hell. How did we miss this? And what are we going to do?"

"Cancel the delivery? I don't know." Lief drops his head into his hands. "There's no delay. It'll go as soon as the wires are connected. One thing's for sure, even if we go ahead, it's a suicide mission now."

I wait a few seconds, weighing my words, spinning the wood block between my fingers. Then, "I'm still doing it."

"What?" Lief stares at me as though I've lost my mind. "You'll die!"

"I'm the hangman. It's my job."

"I won't let you!"

"It's not your decision."

"I won't let you leave me alone down here!" Lief shouts. Then he takes a deep breath, and another one. "Okay. We have the Capitol before District Two. If we can't find anything there, we do it your way. But we flip a coin over who drops off the presents."

"No," I say.

"Spirit. Dammit. For once in your life, listen to me. If one of us has to go, so be it, but I'm not trusting the fate of our people to you and your death wish. Let's leave it up to chance. All right?" Lief's face is pale, as though he can't believe the words that are coming out of his mouth, but he's determined.

"I don't have a death wish," I snap at him.

"Yeah, well, you sure aren't acting like someone who wants to live through this."

I can't believe him. Valentine. He thinks this is about Valentine. "He's gone, Lief. Do you get that? He is gone, and I don't feel obligated to him or any other dead person. I want to survive this, but I'm not so attached to my own life that I'll compromise the whole plan by being scared to take risks. I'm willing to do what I have to. Are you?"

Lief glares at me. "Yeah, Valentine. I am. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

He takes a deep breath and goes back to the issue at hand. "We'll flip a coin. Okay?"

"All right. You've got a week to find a timer."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Hope for a miracle," I mumble, and I pick up my knife and begin to carve.

The Capitol is just as it was four months ago - exuberant, decadent, ridiculous. During the drive from the train station to the Training Center, the streets are so packed with people that the car can't move without running over somebody's foot. It's only by repeatedly honking the horn until everyone within ten feet has been deafened that the driver finally manages to clear a path. The Capitol citizens are shouting so loudly that I can't hear a word they're saying, and I'm in doubt as to whether they want to cheer for me or eat me.

Inside the Training Center, the prep team works on me, stenciling patterns around my eyes in silver paint. My dress, a mirror image of the one I wore on interview night but for the color - is slit right up the side, revealing my leg brace, and Julia settles a silver circlet set with a black stone on my forehead. "It's a good thing you don't have that other ring any more," she says idly as she places the black-stoned ring onto my hand. "It wouldn't match."

There's a thin strip of white skin around my finger where the sunstone ring I gave to Cato used to be. "You're right," I say softly.

I'm dressed in white. Lief is in gray. Cato is in black. Katniss and Peeta are brightly colored in pink and yellow, like tropical birds. They match the colored buildings of the Capitol.

While I'm standing awkwardly with the other victors, Elisheba comes up to me, examining the outfit. A few feet away, I can see Katniss's stylist doing the same to her.

"So?" I say. "What's the verdict?"

"Almost perfect," Elisheba says. She reaches into a pocket and produces a silver watch, which she fastens around my wrist. She looks up into my eyes. "This is the last thing you need. It keeps perfect time."

"I'll give it back to you after the party."

"No," Elisheba gives a little shake of her head, as though her mind is already made up, "you keep it. You need it more than I do."

I look down at the watch, then back at Elisheba. Our preparation for the bombs cannot have escaped her notice, and she must know what we're going to do with them. Elisheba might sympathize with the northerners, but she's a Peacekeeper, and I never imagined that she'd put in my hands the last component I need to destroy the invasion. There are three bombs. We need three timers. With this watch, Lief and I can make sure that at least one of our targets is destroyed.

"Thank you," I say. I'm grateful, but I'm also unnerved. Elisheba was a Peacekeeper. If she knows what we're doing, why isn't she stopping us? Why is she helping me?

Elisheba puts a hand on the small of my back and guides me toward the lobby. "I have to go take my place. Good luck."

As Cato, Lief, and I move to enter the lobby, Haymitch Abernathy stops us. "Wait up, you three. There's something you need to know."

Cato makes a scathing noise. "What? That Lover Boy and Fire Girl are going to tie the knot? We've known that for weeks. Get out of my way."

He pushes past Haymitch. The mentor from Twelve watches him go, looking annoyed. That in itself is a shock - I didn't think Haymitch was capable of emotions other than confusion. "Just like his mentor, that one."

"No, he's not." The words come out before I can remind myself that defending a Career to the non-Career districts isn't my job any longer. All I can think of is how much Cato hates Brutus, how badly Brutus treats him. "They're not alike at all."

"Whatever you say," Haymitch mutters. "You might want to go in, District Seven. You're running out of time."

The way he says this makes me wonder if Elisheba's told him about the bombs, if our plans are really so obvious. Maybe he's not as drunken as we thought. I make a note to be more careful, to speak of the plan only in my thoughts with Lief. No one else can know. This is too important. I take a deep breath and step out into the lobby, lining up behind Cato for our entrance onto the stage for the closing interviews.

During the interview, I catch a glimpse of us on one of the giant screens. We don't look like district kids or northerners any longer; in fact, we're barely distinguishable from the cheering crowds surrounding the stage. Caesar Flickerman hardly glances our way as he poses his questions. It couldn't be clearer that the true stars of these Games are the tributes from District Twelve, and honestly, that's the way I prefer it. The more Panem sees Katniss and Peeta, the better.

When the inevitable proposal comes, it's perfectly done, so perfectly done that I almost believe it for a few seconds. The spectators cry with joy, Peeta grins as though he's king of the world, and Katniss - well, she looks overwhelmed. I knew girls back in the north who would spend hours imagining their perfect proposal, their perfect wedding. I always thought that was a bit absurd. We were soldiers. We never knew when the next attack would come, we didn't know if we'd make it through. Why plan for the future if you don't even know if you'll have one? Based on the look on her face, Katniss feels the same way.

Caesar glances off to the side and his smile slips a bit. "And it looks like we have a very special guest tonight," he says. "President Snow!"

I look, too, and there he is, in a white suit with a blood-red rose attached to the lapel. The silver metal of the watch feels icy around my wrist. _Relax_, I tell myself. _It's not you he's afraid of_. I stretch my features into a happy smile, as though President Snow's appearance is just another pleasant surprise on this night of nights.

He shakes Peeta's hand and pounds him on the shoulder. Then he hugs Katniss. "What do you think about us throwing you a wedding right here in the Capitol?" Caesar asks her over the roars of the audience.

She lets out a little shriek that could either be terror or joy, and is probably a mix of the two. I think she's hysterical.

"Oh, but before we set a date, let's clear it with Katniss's mother," President Snow says. "If the whole country puts its mind to it, maybe we can get you married before you're forty."

President Snow must enjoy this. He must like playing games with people's lives, forcing them into tight corners and watching them writhe as they look for an escape that doesn't exist. I wonder if he knows that a trapped animal is the most dangerous of all.

I want to skip the party, go back to my room, and find a place to stash the watch. Johanna refuses to let me get away with it. "It's your party, Nails," she says, dragging me toward the gilded doors of the president's mansion. Her nails leave little half-moons in my wrist. "It kind of defeats the purpose if you're not there."

Cato, Lief, and I have attained a sort of mid-level celebrity in the Capitol, on par with the stylists and the mentors. Even so, we still get asked to dance multiple times, and Maia follows me around the enormous ballroom, giving a running commentary on who I can and can't refuse. I have to dance with several of my sponsors, the last of whom is an old man with such sweaty hands that I can feel the moisture through my dress, and by the time the song is over, I all but run from him.

"He left _handprints_," I mutter to Lief once I'm safely away. "I feel disgusting."

"Want to dance?"

"I can't think of anything I'd like to do less."

"Is it the dancing you disapprove of or just the idea of dancing with me?" Lief persists.

"Why does it matter?"

"Well, that man -" Lief points to a purple-robed Gamemaker "- is about to ask you, and he's the Head Gamemaker, so I really don't think you can say no. I figured if he saw you dancing with me, he might leave you alone."

"Good thinking. Let's go." I grab Lief's hand and pull him onto the dance floor.

Neither of us are particularly accomplished dancers. I put my hands on his shoulders, he puts his on my waist, and we revolve slowly in a circle. I feel ridiculous. "Somehow, this always looks less stupid when it's Katniss and Peeta doing it."

"It's because they're in _love_," Lief says. "And we're just acquaintances. Of course we look stupid."

"We're friends, Lief. Not acquaintances."

Lief snorts. "Whatever you say, Spirit. By, the way, we can sound the all-clear. That Gamemaker is dancing with Katniss."

We separate and slink off into separate corners of the room. I see the stylists in a group by the dessert table, talking and laughing, probably comparing each other's work. Lief is conversing with some of the musicians on break; they're helping him tune his guitar. For a moment, I wonder where Cato is. Probably dancing with some surgically altered Capitol girl, now that he's given up on me.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, and stupidly, I hope that it's Cato. Then I turn around and see the same Gamemaker I danced with Lief to escape. "Hello," I say guardedly.

"Do you know who I am?" he says.

"No," I lie.

"I'm Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Head Gamemaker."

"What happened to the last one?"

The Gamemaker lets out a small, uncomfortable laugh. "Well, Miss Emerson…let's just say he didn't measure up."

We look at each other for a second. Then Plutarch Heavensbee says, "On a lighter note, may I have this dance?"

I lost Maia at some point in the endless round of sponsor dances, but if she were here, I'm pretty sure she'd tell me that I can't possibly say no. I force a smile. "All right."

We walk out onto the dance floor as a new song begins, quite a bit faster than the one that was playing during my dance with Lief. My brace lets out a pneumatic-sounding hiss as I pivot and lean and generally use my leg far more than I've done in the last four months. As the dance ends, I find myself out of breath, with a horrible ache spinning its way out of my reconstructed hip. Plutarch Heavensbee helps me as I limp awkwardly off the dance floor and lean up against the wall. It must be in his contract to have good manners.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes as I try to catch my breath.

"I'm crippled," I mutter. "It may be your fault, but that doesn't mean it's your problem."

He laughs. "You must have spent most of time on air holding your tongue, Miss Emerson."

"You have no idea."

"Well, we need some personality amongst the victors, I suppose."

"There's always Johanna."

"She has a bit too much personality," Plutarch Heavensbee says. "Perhaps she'll tone it down eventually. In the mean time, Miss Emerson, I have a gift for you."

He reaches into his suit pocket and produces a pocket watch on a chain. "I heard you've been having a little trouble keeping time."

The watch swings back and forth, and I follow it with my eyes. Then I reach out and snatch it, my fingers closing around the watch. But the Head Gamemaker won't let go of the chain. I tighten my grip. "You do know what I'm going to do with this?"

"Of course," he says. "But you should be aware, Spirit, that there are others with the same goal."

_Like you. _The northerners aren't the only ones who'd like to overthrow the Capitol. There are rebels inside Panem. But somehow I think Plutarch Heavensbee isn't one of those. He's allied to someone else, someone with the resources to infiltrate the highest levels of Panem's government, someone who's impervious to attack. District Thirteen.

Before what Panem calls the Dark Days, District Thirteen was the Capitol's military center, and they were stronger than we were. We were losing the war. When the first rebellion began and District Thirteen was bombed into submission, we thanked our lucky stars; then we realized that District Thirteen hadn't been destroyed. They had moved underground, taking their stash of nuclear weapons with them.

They could afford to hide. My people couldn't. So we continued the fight against the Capitol for the next seventy-five years - and now, now that we're finally close to finishing them off, District Thirteen has decided to rear its ugly head.

"I know. So why are you giving me this watch?"

"Hmm?"

"If there are others who share the same goal, why are you asking me?" I cross my arms. In the few communications there have been between District Thirteen and my people, they've made it clear that they think we're a bunch of cave-dwelling savages. I can't believe they'd ever ask a northerner for help.

"We believe that you have the best chance of succeeding."

"Fine. Give me the watch." I yank on the watch, trying to free it, but Plutarch Heavensbee doesn't let go.

"I want to be sure you can complete your task."

I roll my eyes. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Fair point," Plutarch Heavensbee admits. "All right, Miss Emerson. Best of luck."

He drops the watch into my hands and walks away.

District Two at last. I step onto the station platform after the victors from District Twelve, waving to a crowd who pretends that they're happy to see me. I'm wearing a jet black dress and the bombs I will plant in the Peacekeeper trains are stitched into the sleeves. Elisheba did this, and unlike Cato, she doesn't have the shield of being a victor to protect her. I don't understand her reasons for helping us, but then again, I don't need to; all that matters is that she helped us.

Cato appears out of the train to thunderous applause and warm greetings from his family. Crow glances my way once, but I deal him such an awful glare when he does that he's careful to avoid my gaze after that. I have the feeling that every move I make in District Two is being scrutinized, and I don't want to draw suspicion onto anyone else.

Cato's mother wraps her arms around him, squeezing him so tightly that he's being slowly asphyxiated. His father's smile can barely be contained on his thin face, and Aurelia, wearing pink this time, bounces around them, laughing and smiling. For a second, I am intensely jealous of Cato, of his parents and his siblings and how his life hasn't been a careful calculation of how much he stands to lose. Jealous of the feeling of being so secure that you can't imagine the horrors that are coming for you.

I shake my head. I can't miss what I've never had.

Our entrance into the party is carefully choreographed. Katniss and Peeta first, so the cameramen can get all their star-crossed lovers photos out of the way. Then Lief. Then Cato and me. Obviously, Brutus and Johanna failed to mention that the two of us are no longer a going concern, not that it matters. This is Cato's home. The rest of us are an afterthought, and for once, I can rest easy knowing that no one will be looking at me.

Katniss and Peeta enter, to anemic applause. Then Lief, who, if it's possible, gets even less applause than District Twelve. Cato and I have been directed to give Lief a thirty-second head start, and we wait in blistering silence.

When the countdown has a mere twelve seconds remaining, I gather up my courage and do something I haven't done in weeks. "It didn't have to be this way," I say quietly to Cato, reaching out and laying a hand on his shoulder.

He doesn't move or answer, only stares impassively ahead, and I let my hand fall away. _Three, two, one_. The doors swing open and we step side by side into a sea of flashing lights and people yelling our names.

It doesn't take long for the party to roar into full swing. I lose Cato in the crowd almost immediately, and before I can even think about it, I'm dancing with the mayor of District Two. Then Cato's father. Then Aurelia grabs my hands and spins me around until I'm so dizzy that I can barely walk. I manage to stagger into the bathroom, where I dry-heave into the sink and then stare at my pale, frightened face in the mirror.

"I can't do this," I say, and almost as soon as I do, I feel shame overwhelm me. The issue is not of can or can't. I must do this. I must do this, or my people will never live free of the Capitol. I take a deep breath, splash some water on my face, and perform a quick scan of the bathroom for cameras. I find none. Then I begin to rearrange my clothing.

Elisheba was particularly skillful here. The lower half of my skirt detaches, and I wrap it around my face and hair, leaving only my eyes visible. Beneath the skirt, I wear leggings and dark boots. My sleeves are long enough to cover my hands and billowy enough to hide the bombs. I sneak another glance in the mirror and sigh with relief; I no longer resemble a Capitol citizen. I look just like a northern soldier, out on a mission.

There's a window in the far corner of the bathroom. I open it and slither out, setting off through the darkened streets of District Two.

Most of the houses I pass are empty. Everyone is out in the town square, or at the battle school, celebrating yet another victory for District Two, and thanks to a large bonfire they've set up, the sky glows a faint orange. It's beginning to snow slightly, large flakes drifting lazily out of the sky. I hug the sides of buildings, keeping to the shadows as I jog lightly toward the military base that makes up half the town, wondering how long it will be before I'm missed.

The battle school acts as the dividing line. On one side of it lie the houses and shops; on the other, the Peacekeeper training grounds, the station, the supply depot. I duck behind a tree to scout out the main road, searching for Peacekeepers, cameras, warning lights. I don't see anything, but just as I'm about to go for it, a voice floats out of the darkness and scares me out of my skin.

"You're going the wrong way."

I wheel around and lunge toward the source of the sound. By the time I reach him, my claws are already extended, ready to wrap around his throat.

"Let go," he gasps, pulling at my scaled hands. "I'm trying to help!"

My eyes dilate in the dark, bringing his features into focus. "Crow?"

"Yeah, I'm your boyfriend's brother - now let go of me!"

I don't uncurl my claws. Crow may have warned us about the invasion, but there's no way he could know that the counterattack was tonight or that I was the one carrying it out. "How did you know I'd be here?"

"Cato told me," Crow says. "You can't go that way. They set up motion triggers all over the main road."

My breath catches. "They know?"

"They're expecting something. Not you. If I take you through the back way, they'll never know." Crow hooks a finger underneath one of my claws and pries it up, freeing himself from my grip. He grabs my wrist and tugs me through a wooded area and down a side road. "Let's go."

"What is it with your family and high treason?" I hiss as I follow him through the dark. "Do you not get what's going to happen to you if you're caught?"

He smirks, and I realize that his cocky grin is the twin of Cato's. "I've lived here my whole life," he says. "They won't catch me. So where are you hitting?"

Originally, there were three targets. Supply trains. Troop trains. And the main depot, to destroy the munitions at their source. I only have two bombs. Lief left the choice of target up to me, deferring both to my greater tactical ability and the fact that I may have to make a quick decision. I can't deny that blowing up a train full of Peacekeepers would be satisfying, but in order to do the greatest good for my people, I have to take out the supplies. My people can deal with reinforcements. But they can't stand in the face of a train route mainlining troops and weapons into the heartland.

"Supply trains and the depot."

Crow nods. "Good choice, my friend."

"Are there guards?"

"At the depot. Not the station." Crow frowns. "Why?"

For someone who's so perceptive, he's really not very smart. "Take me to the station and give me directions to the depot. Then leave."

"Why?"

"You're not going to want to see what I have to do."

Crow looks at me; then he glances down at my left hand, still curled into a claw. He nods grimly.

In order to reach the train station, we have to sneak past the Peacekeeper barracks. There's a raucous party going on inside, but light floods from the windows, and in order to be safe, we detour around. I wonder how long I've been gone. Has anyone noticed I'm missing? Has Lief been able to put them off if they have? As we run through the dark, I only speak once. "We're on a bit of a tight schedule."

"Almost there," Crow says.

And then, a minute or two later, we are there. I trip over the train tracks, half-buried in the snow, and sprawl flat on my face, leaving a Spirit-shaped snow angel that will definitely be noticed come morning. I do my best to smear it out, but then Crow drags me away. "It'll snow tonight. Don't worry about it."

We cross the tracks fast. Crow is a fast runner, leaping over the crossties easily, whereas my limp and brace slow me down. On all the tracks, I can only see one train, a hulking shape at least a mile long. When we reach that train, Crow stops. He climbs up onto the undercarriage and pulls open a boxcar's doors. He lets out a sigh of relief.

"What?"

"This is what you're looking for," he says. "Medicine, food, winter coats. Blow this up and they'll have a hard time holding their position."

He climbs off the undercarriage and stands by the open door, obviously waiting for something. Then, after a minute passes in which I don't move to place the bomb, he says, "What are you waiting for?"

"I can't plant it here." I set off for the engine, limping through the snow. Crow pauses only to shut the boxcar door before chasing after me.

"What are you doing?"

"If goes off in the engine compartment, the fuel supply will blow. We need a big explosion, not a smoke bomb."

"You'll kill the engineers," Crow says.

I'm inclined to ask him why that's such a big deal, but I decide against it. I keep slogging through the snow toward the engine.

The engine compartment is locked, but that won't be a problem. I turn to Crow. "Tell me how to get to the depot once I've done this."

He gives me the directions, then makes me repeat them back to him. Once he's satisfied I know the way, he quickly shakes my hand. "Good luck, Spirit."

"Thanks for the help."

Crow turns to leave, but then seems to think better of it and turns around again. "Hey, Spirit? Do me a favor."

"Yeah?"

"Take care of my brother, all right? He's not as smart as I am."

I shrug. "You're asking the wrong girl. We aren't…well, there's not a we anymore."

Crow laughs. "He's being stubborn. He sent me to help you, didn't he? That's got to count for something."

He sets off at a run across the train tracks. I wait until he's out of sight before I turn my attention to the locked engine compartment. Giving myself two minutes to pick the lock before resorting to other means, I morph out a single claw and get to work, poking through the tumblers and hoping for the best. Valentine was good at picking locks, and although he tried to teach me, it never stuck. I didn't have the patience then, and I don't have it tonight, but luck must be with me, because after a minute and a half of work, the lock clicks open, revealing the engine compartment. After a quick glance around to make sure the station is still deserted, I crawl inside.

The stink of machine oil is everywhere as I slither around equipment and components. My sleeve drags through a puddle of something that smells distinctly of gasoline, but I keep going, through the belly of the train and up a service stairway until I'm directly in front of the fuel tank. I pause for a second, then roll up my left sleeve and extract the bomb.

It's awfully small to be so deadly, but the power cells from District Five are incredibly potent. Lief has concealed almost all of the wiring as well as the timer; once I start the timer and close the hatch, the bomb will be indistinguishable from the other parts lying around. I find the two wires that, when connected, will start the countdown, and twist them together. I hold it up to my ear, listening for the telltale clicking that means the countdown has begun, and then I wedge the bomb in behind the fuel tank.

The countdown on this bomb is set for six hours. By the time it goes off, this train will be on its way north. Hopefully, the wreckage will block the tracks and prevent any more shipments from going through, and at the very least, it will leave the Peacekeepers cold, injured, and starving until the next train comes through. I scramble out of the train and slam the engine compartment shut.

As I'm crossing the last of the train tracks, a loud, long whistle sounds and scares me out of my skin. I go from a light jog to a full-on sprint in about two seconds, bolting back into the wooded area as though I'm being chased. Once I'm safely in the trees, I glance back to see the train I just left lurching into motion, and I allow myself a small moment of satisfaction before continuing on toward the supply depot.

Part one of the plan is finished, but the supply depot will present a more challenging target. Following Crow's directions, I creep along the perimeter of the military base until I reach a large, nondescript building, distinguished only by a massive loading dock in the back, manned by a single, bored looking Peacekeeper. That's my way in.

I get closer. It's possible that I could sneak around this Peacekeeper - he doesn't seem all that attentive, and I can be quiet when I need to - but it seems dangerous to leave a possible witness. On the other hand, if the guard changes before I plant the bomb and the body is discovered, all hell will break loose in an entirely different way. Better to leave him alive.

I pick up a good-sized rock and pitch it into a tangle of bramble bushes about twenty feet away. The resulting snow dump and rustling distracts the guard; he lifts up his weapon and hurries over to check it out. Once he's clear of the floodlights, I bolt into the depths of the loading dock, barely making it through before he comes back. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have cut it so close. I would have been gone before he even turned around again. But my ruined hip has cut my speed in half, and that Capitol doctor was right; cybernetics can't make up for flesh and bone. I lean against a wall, catching my breath. Then I straighten the scarf around my face, making sure my features are obscured, and continue into the depot.

When I told him I was hitting the supply depot, Crow probably expected that I would plant the bomb somewhere unobtrusive and be out of there as quickly as possible. Honestly, that's probably what Lief's expecting, too. But as with the train, I can't run the risk of this explosion being a minor thing. It has to be big, dangerous, spectacular. And for that, I can't count on the tiny power cells. I need a secondary accelerant - like a power generator.

The supply depot is a maze. Hallways dead-end into nothing, stairways lead to more stairways that end not at new floors, but at single rooms. There's no rhyme or reason to the design of this place, so I have to make guesses about where things will be, avoiding the upper floors because no architect with a working brain would place a power supply aboveground. I keep my claws morphed in case I meet someone, but the guards are only stationed in a few spots. I get the feeling they find this place as easy to get lost in as I do.

The ticking of a clock runs insistently in the back of my mind, reminding me that I only have so much time to complete this mission. It would be so easy to stop now, toss the bomb into an empty room and run back before I'm noticed, but the need for this to be seen, for the soldiers who kill my people to suffer like my people do, is stronger than I thought it would be. I keep looking, following endless staircases down into the depths of this labyrinth.

_There_.

Finally, the room I've been looking for. The door is locked, but I pop the pins out of the hinges and go inside, into a humming nightmare of electric blue wires and ozone crackling in the air. The acrid stench stings my nasal passages, combining with the leftover odor of machine oil to create the foulest smell in the world. I hold my breath, twist the wires, and set the bomb. This countdown is far shorter than the one on the train bomb, because we can't risk someone coming down here and discovering the device. Once the timer is set, I have fifteen minutes to get clear. I don't know how big

the blast radius is, especially now that I've amplified it by putting it in the generator, so the general rule of thumb is to get as far away as possible with all speed. I run from the room.

The map of the depot in my head is splintering at the edges; I can't remember if this doorway leads to another dead end, if this staircase takes me toward the exit. At this point I don't care if I leave through the loading dock or escape right out the front door; all that matters is that I'm out by the time the bomb goes off. Twelve minutes. Eleven. Ten.

I get lost. I hit four dead ends in a row and have to backtrack, forcing myself to calm down and think through the panic. When I finally hit a section I recognize, it turns out that I'm closer than I thought to the exit. Only one guard station stands between me and the way out; unfortunately, it's fully staffed, and all of them have just seen me.

"Stop!" one yells, under the mistaken impression that I'm going to go for the exit. Instead, I run directly toward them, extending my claws as I go, and by the time the quickest among them raises his weapon, I'm taking out his throat.

It's been a long time since I fought hand-to-hand with a Peacekeeper, and almost all the factors in this situation are in my favor. They have numbers, but that means they can't shoot at me without the danger of hitting one of their fellows. Their only weapons are guns, and I know for a fact that they receive only rudimentary hand-to-hand training. I'm doing rather well for myself; I've only fielded a few heavy hits, and several Peacekeepers are dead. And then the apocalyptic wail of a warning siren tells me that my troubles are just beginning. One of the Peacekeepers must have hit the panic button.

In a few moments, squads of Peacekeepers will come flooding to this guard station, meaning that I no longer have the option of keeping this quiet - and to make matters worse, I've lost the count. I have no idea how long it will be until the bomb goes off, and I have no intention of dying here. I leap out of the guard station and run toward the exit, dropping and rolling to avoid a hail of bullets, then scrambling back up as the doors to the loading dock begin to shut. I dive through moments before it slams closed, hit the ground harder than I would have liked, and bolt for the trees, intent only on putting as much distance between myself and the supply depot as possible.

It starts with a shudder beneath the ground, the earth heaving and knocking me off my feet. I sprawl into a bramble bush and flip onto my back, staring in awe as the supply depot goes up in flames.

It reminds me almost of the photos we had in the north of the war that mutated us, the ones of the mushroom clouds rising into the sky. Flames burst from the windows, spitting out glittering shards of glass, and rather than caving in on itself, the building, well, _explodes_. It doesn't occur to me immediately to get out of the way, and by the time it does, it's too late.

The air around me is peppered with shrapnel, and a shard of metal arrows into the hand I've brought up to shield my face, leaving a spiderweb cut in its place. I dive behind a tree as more shrapnel comes flying from a secondary explosion. I work my way back through the woods, using the trees as cover from the shrapnel, and for a second, I think I'm out of range. Then the earth surges up, the chain reaction traveling through some underground gas main, and the resultant explosion sends me flying into the air.

I can't land on my feet; it's all I can do to direct my fall so I don't impale myself on a tree. I land hard on my side with one arm trapped underneath me, and when I roll onto my back, I go right into the fire. One of my sleeves bursts into flames and for a moment, all I can do is stare at it. Then I get my act together and thrust my arm into the nearest snow bank, and while I'm waiting for the fire to go out, I look around at my handiwork.

The supply depot is gone, and there's a massive crater in the ground where it used to be. There's a line of fire running through the forest, probably following the exploded gas main, and power appears to be down in at least a quarter of the town. I said I wanted a spectacular explosion. That's exactly what I got. My heart is pounding. I can feel it at the base of my skull, in my throat, in my chest. But still, as I look at the flames, I feel a strange sense of pride. Look at this. Look what I did to them.

I can smell burnt skin. At least some of my hair is singed off, and I might have burns on my back as well. My arm aches from the landing, and as I get to my feet, I realize that I damaged either my brace or my hip in my wild jump off the loading dock. I take a few experimental steps. It's painful, but I can walk.

I glance back at the ruined buildings, the fires. Already I can see fire crews driving in, lights flashing, sirens wailing, and I must be gone by the time they arrive. I walk, then force myself into a light jog, my hip and ankle jarring with every step as I make for the Justice Building. Any minute now, the Peacekeepers at that party will be getting called to the explosion site, and I have to be back before then.


	9. Retaliation

A/N: Apologies for the gap in updates, and thanks to RoseMaple, I-Beg-To-Differ, and Guest. An especially big thank-you to Anla'shok for reviewing and also helping out with some plot holes.

Please review.

* * *

Cato:

For some stupid reason, I was expecting the victory celebration in District Two to be different from the ones everywhere else. I don't know why - maybe because it's my home - but I thought it would be less fake. It's not. My parents left hours ago, dragging a protesting Aurelia along with them. I think they would have stayed longer, but Mom is eight months pregnant and her doctor says she should stay off her feet. Besides Crow and the other victors, I don't know anyone here.

Crow came back maybe half an hour ago. He's hanging out at a corner table with some of his friends from the Peacekeeper Academy. When I saw him reappear, I asked him how it went. "How what went?" he said. Then he winked at me and wandered off.

I wasn't planning to send Crow to help Spirit. I know where I'm not wanted, and if they want to blow something up, let them. I don't have to help. But then Aurelia said something about blocking off part of the main road and installing motion-activated stun guns - crowd control, she said - and I realized that it had nothing to do with crowd control. It was about Spirit and people like her, coming to stop the northern invasion, and I'd bet everything I own that it wasn't stun guns they were using. No matter what I thought Spirit had done to me, I couldn't let her walk into that. So I told Crow to take her around the back way.

He found her, told her where to go, and got back all right. It's been half an hour. Spirit isn't here yet.

I'm not the only one who's nervous about her absence. Lief's been sitting in the same spot for an hour now, frantically drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Anybody watching him can tell something's up, but luckily for him, everyone is either too drunk or too self-absorbed to care. After a while, I get sick of watching him twitch around, and I get up and go outside.

It's cold, of course, and it's snowing a little. The sky has that weird, not-quite-nighttime look it always gets when a blizzard's coming. It's quieter out here. You can still hear the pounding beat of the music, but at least it's muffled a bit.

I'm not the only one out here on the balcony. Katniss and Lover Boy are here, too, talking in low voices. When they see me, they stop speaking.

"Believe me, District Twelve," I mutter as I walk past, "I couldn't care less."

The Justice Building, like the Victor's Village, is set on the mountainside. I lean against the railing and study the town, wondering if I'm always going to be the person no one wants around. My mentor hates me, Spirit can't stand me, and District Twelve acts like I'm still the same person I was in the arena. What do I have to do to get people to stop treating me like a monster?

Maybe stop acting like one. Spirit tried to talk to me, and I blew her off because I was too busy being pissed. What if she doesn't come back, and the last thing I ever did was ignore her? My fingers are starting to turn blue, but I refuse to go back inside. I try not to think about it, but I know I'm listening for an explosion.

When something finally happens, it seems anticlimactic. The sky lights up with a red glow and a second or so later, a sound like a distant clap of thunder reaches my ears. If I hadn't been paying attention, I'd have missed it, and when nothing dramatic happens afterward - no warning sirens, no Peacekeepers charging through the street - I start to wonder if it wasn't just a firework. It's so quiet.

Quiet. The music that was blaring just a few minutes ago is gone. I spin around and stare at the darkened hulk of the Justice Building. All the lights are off. The power's blown out.

Katniss and Lover Boy come tearing around the corner, panic in their eyes. "That wasn't a firework," Lover Boy states.

I stare at them for a second. They don't know what happened or who did it, all they know is that something's wrong. Let's keep it that way. "No," I say, and I go back inside.

It's another three minutes before the backup generator kicks in, and by that time the party has basically deteriorated into chaos. The Capitol people are either crying, shrieking, or sitting frozen in their seats, and the Peacekeepers are shouting impressive-sounding commands at each other. I'm pretty sure that none of them even know what's happened. Lief is still sitting at his table, looking even more nervous than before. And Spirit is still missing.

I start scanning the crowd, realizing that looking for Spirit is a situation that I tend to find myself in a lot. Just my luck to pick a girl who's continually disappearing on me. I focus in on someone. They've just come out of the bathroom and they're walking with a heavy limp. They have a scarf wrapped around their head, but as they reach the main room, they reach up and pull it halfway down, revealing the upper part of their face. Even with half her features covered, I know who it is. I could probably recognize her anywhere. Spirit made it back after all.

As she starts making her way through the crowd, red lights begin to flash. The Peacekeeper's communicators have been reactivated, and they all start moving toward the exits. One of them runs into Spirit in his hurry to get out, and she staggers; then she rights herself and keeps walking, finally sitting down at Lief's table.

I walk closer, getting into earshot just in time to hear Lief hiss, "What the hell did you do?"

"Don't start," Spirit says tiredly. Her voice sounds rough, and as I get closer, I catch the smell of burnt hair. "It's done."

"I told you -" Lief's voice gets too quiet to hear, or maybe he stops talking altogether. Then "- and now the power in half the district is down! And look at the mess you're in!"

"It's not that bad," Spirit says.

"Oh, really? So why are you still wearing that scarf on your face?"

Spirit glares at Lief, but leaves the scarf where it is. Curious, I step closer, pull out the one empty chair, and sit down at the table with them. They don't even notice me.

"Did you break a rib?" Lief asks.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I think I'd know."

Lief reaches across the table and jabs Spirit in the side. She flinches back and lets out a little yelp of pain. I touch her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

They both stare at me. "When did you get here?" Lief say nastily.

Forget this. "I was just leaving, okay? Go back to your stupid top-secret -"

As I get up, Lief grabs my arm and pulls me back down. "Oh, shut up. You might as well make yourself useful."

"I think I already did," I snap. "Did you even know that they set up a trap on the main road?"

"They what?" Lief says.

Spirit, meanwhile, has let her head droop forward onto the table. "Can the two of you stop? Cato heard about the roadblock and sent Crow to help me get around it. If he hadn't, I would be captured or dead right now."

"His brother could have just as easily turned us in!"

"He's the one who told us about the invasion." Spirit coughs and spits something into an empty wineglass. "He saved this whole plan, all right? And we have bigger things to worry about right now."

Lief's face goes white. "What are you talking about? Were you seen?"

"Anyone who saw me is dead," Spirits says. She coughs again. "I'm talking about this."

She glances around. No one is paying attention. Then she pulls the scarf off her face. Her chin and part of her cheek are covered in bloody scrapes. She brings her hands up and lays them on the table; they're bloody as well, and there are burns on her arms. Looking at her, how damaged she is, only one thought crosses my mind. I have to get her out of here before anyone sees her.

How, though? The Peacekeepers will be out in full force by now, setting up checkpoints on every street corner, and her injuries will send up an instant red flag. To avoid looking at Lief's panicked face, I glance around the room, and my eyes fall on the mentor from District Twelve - the only person at this whole party who seems to be having fun. There's a wineglass in his hand, and I'm not the only one staring at him. Drunks always attract attention - maybe even more attention than a victor with a bloody face.

Lief follows my gaze. "Will that work?" he says.

I don't even care that he seems to be able to read not just Spirit's mind, but mine, too. "It depends. Can you act drunker than Haymitch Abernathy?"

Lief nods. Now that there's a plan - even a crazy plan - he seems less frantic. "Give me five minutes."

"Spirit," I say, turning to her, "go get cleaned up."

"Cleaned up," she repeats.

"Get the blood off your face, at least," I say. "Then we'll go."

Spirit leaves right away, limping off to the bathroom. Lief stays for a moment. He picks up a half-empty wineglass, drains it in one gulp, and gets up, heading for the bar, already beginning to stagger. Meanwhile, I plot a route between the Justice Building and my house in the Victor's Village. It's maybe a half a mile away, but it's uphill, and the snow is falling heavily. By the time we get moving, there will be at least one checkpoint in our path. Hopefully, Lief can draw attention away from Spirit long enough for us to get through.

Spirit gets back first. The smell of smoke and burnt hair has lessened, and her face isn't covered in blood any longer, but her limp is getting worse and worse. "You all right?" I ask.

"I think I did something to my leg," Spirit says. "But I'm fine."

She smiles when she says this, or tries to. It looks more like a grimace. I reach over and take her hand. "Look, I'm…I'm sorry about the past couple weeks."

Spirit shakes her head. "You sent Crow to help me. I think we're even."

I'm leaning over to kiss her when Lief reappears, the stink of alcohol rising off him. "Am I interrupting?" he slurs.

Spirit and I glance at each other. If I didn't know better, I'd swear Lief was actually drunk.

"Oh, hell, Lief, not again," Spirit says. "Come on, Cato. Let's get him out of here before he embarrasses himself."

Lief throws an arm over each of our shoulders and allows himself to be dragged out of the Justice Building, grinning like a fool. As we walk past Haymitch Abernathy, he raises his glass to us. Once we get onto the road, I'm expecting Lief to drop the act, but he keeps it up faithfully. Slowly the stupid smile drops off his face and he begins to sniffle. Finally, when we're about halfway to the Victor's Village, he crosses the line into full-out weepy drunk.

On Lief's other side, Spirit is struggling. The snow is bad enough - it's accumulating quickly now - but she can barely walk on her left leg, and the added burden of her drunk district partner is dragging her down. As we start the slow climb up to the gates of the Victor's Village, she trips and sends all three of us sprawling face-down into the snow.

I help her up. I don't ask if she's all right or if she can walk, because she has to be, and I think she knows that. She just grabs Lief by the arms and hauls him out of the snow, and we keep going.

At the gates, there are three Peacekeepers, each holding a machine gun. One of them stops us. "What is your business here?"

Time to be the spoiled victor. "I live here. What are _you _doing here?"

The Peacekeeper ignores me. She points her gun at Lief, and I can feel both northerners tense. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's drunk." Lief, helpfully, chooses this second to lift his head up, say, "I'm drunk," and burst into fresh tears.

The Peacekeeper still looks skeptical. "I want to give him a sobriety test."

"Go ahead," Spirit says. She lets go of Lief and so do I, and he falls over.

The Peacekeepers pick him up out of the snow and make him stand on one foot. He manages it, but his arms are wind-milling the whole time, and when they try to get him to walk in a straight line, he wanders around in circles and falls over again.

"Are you done, or do you want him to throw up first?" I say. From his spot in the snow, Lief shoots me a dirty look.

The Peacekeeper picks Lief up, flinches at the smell from the glass of wine he poured on his shirt, and pushes him back at us. "Go home and sober up, you three."

"Thanks for your help," Spirit says sarcastically, and I want to warn her not to say anything. Her voice is scratchy from smoke. But the Peacekeeper doesn't say anything, and our little six-legged race moves through the gates and into the Victor's Village.

As the gate swings shut, the Peacekeeper calls out to us. "Congratulations, by the way."

"On what?" Spirit says warily.

"Winning the Games, of course. It was -" the Peacekeeper makes a short bow "- a momentous achievement."

The two women glare at each other for a moment. "Thanks," Spirit says, and she turns around and keeps walking.

The lights in almost all the houses are off, but mine are working. I make Spirit hold Lief up while I unlock the door; then we tow him inside.

"Can I stop now?" When we nod, Lief straightens up with a sigh of relief. "You owe me big time, Spirit. And you, Cato -" he points at me "- are going to lend me some of your clothes, because I do not want to stink like alcohol for the rest of the night."

I check the laundry basket and toss a shirt and a pair of pants at Lief. He disappears into the downstairs bathroom with them, and I head upstairs to get the first-aid kit for Spirit. I try to be quiet, but the stairs are squeaky, and I don't sneak around at night enough to know which ones are safe. I get the kit out of the closet and go downstairs.

"If I were you, I wouldn't clean that up in here," Lief says as I get out antibiotic creams and bandages. "Blood doesn't come out of carpet."

"I don't even want to know how you know that." Still, I tell Spirit to come into the kitchen. No need for my parents to know that I was cleaning blood off my rebel girlfriend's face in the living room.

She sits down at the kitchen table and it occurs to me that she knows way more about medicine than I'm ever going to know. "Uh…"

Spirit takes the antiseptic and begins to wipe it across her face, barely wincing even though I know it stings. "It's the thought that counts," she says.

"How did it go?" I ask her under my breath.

"I had to kill a couple Peacekeepers," she says. "Doesn't matter."

Doesn't matter. That's how they tell us to think about it in battle school. It doesn't matter - not if you win. I guess in Spirit's mind, she did win.

"What about your leg?" I ask. "And your ribs?"

Spirit shrugs. "I'll have to deal with it, I guess."

"You have a hairline fracture in your left femur and you cracked three of your ribs," Lief calls from the living room. "You can't deal with that."

"Just because you never deal with anything -"

"Can you two try to keep it down?" I hiss, digging chunks of ice out of the refrigerator and dumping them into a pillowcase. "My parents are -"

"No longer asleep."

The voice comes from behind me. I slowly turn around, caught in the act and feeling just as ashamed as I did when I was ten and got caught red-handed stealing cookies out of the jar. "Mom."

She steps into the kitchen, arms crossed over her massive belly. "Cato, what are you doing?"

A red flag goes up in my mind. Mom doesn't know about the explosions yet. I'm going to have to be careful about what I tell her. "Someone blew up the supply depot, so they shut down the party. They didn't really tell us where to go, so I brought Spirit and Lief here."

"Lief is here, too?" Mom peers into the living room, where Lief is sitting on the couch, and sniffs the air, frowning. "Is that alcohol?"

"It's my fault," Lief says. "The mayor dumped a drink on me right before I left."

"He's always been a drunk." Now that we're all accounted for, Mom's attention goes to the more worrying part of my statement. "The supply depot was bombed?"

"I guess," I say, playing dumb and realizing that I have to explain Spirit's injuries. "Anyway, the power went out at the party and everybody panicked -" true enough "- so Spirit got kind of trampled. I hope it was okay to bring her here."

Mom gets as close to Spirit as her pregnancy allows and examines her. "You got awfully banged up."

"It was sort of a riot." Spirit shifts, trying to avoid Mom's gaze.

Mom looks back at me. "What about Crow?"

"I think he got called out."

"Thank you for letting us stay here, Mrs. Lewis," Lief says to Mom. "The Peacekeepers set up checkpoints everywhere. It's scary out there."

Lief is playing off Mom's instinct to mother everything younger than her. It's going to keep us out of trouble, but it's disturbing how easily he manipulates everyone. Mom pokes around a bit, decides that we're all right; then, after warning us not to wake up Aurelia, who has school in the morning, she goes back to bed.

We stay up all night. I try checking the TV for information, but all I get is static. When I ask Spirit if she targeted communications, she shrugs. "Not specifically. The supply depot must have been connected to more than I thought."

Crow doesn't come home. At some point, we get an automated call from the Peacekeeper base stating that he and all the other new graduates of the Peacekeeper Academy have been deployed. When he hears this, Lief comes into the kitchen and he and Spirit carry on a whispered conversation about whether or not the second bomb has exploded.

"Where did you put it?" I ask.

"On one of the outgoing supply trains," Spirit says. "The timer was set for six hours. It should have gone off by now."

"Communications are down," Lief reminds her. "They wouldn't know. And even if it didn't go off, there's enough chaos on this end of things to stall the invasion." He looks at Spirit for a second to make sure she's listening, then awkwardly pats her shoulder. "Go get some sleep, Spirit. You look like hell."

She passes out on the couch. Lief paces the lower floor. I stare out the window at the crawling lines of Peacekeepers marching through the streets, wondering if Crow is down there or if he's already airborne in one of his beloved hovercrafts. In the space of a few hours, District Two has gone from being the most secure and powerful place in the districts to being a war zone. Is this what it's going to be like when the rebellion really starts?

"Worse," Lief says. "This is nothing. You lost power, big deal. You still have food, and there aren't any civilian casualties. Not every attack is going to be so precise."

"Thanks," I mutter. "Don't make me regret helping you."

Lief rolls his eyes. "My people are careful. The Capitol is not. Think about that when the time comes."

I'm about to ask him exactly what he's implying when someone bangs on the door. Lief goes to answer it, but Spirit, awake and alert now, grabs his arm and pulls him back onto the couch. I open the door. "Yeah?"

It's Brutus, and Johanna Mason, and Lief's mentor. And they're flanked by Peacekeepers. "Where have you been?" Johanna snarls. "And what the hell did you do with my victor?"

"And mine," Lief's mentor adds. Johanna gives him a vicious look. She looks angry, but I think she's worried about Spirit.

"Shut up, Blight. You -" she points back at me "- if you don't tell me where she is, I'll make sure you never have children."

"Calm down, old bag," Spirit says from behind me. "Keep talking like that and people will think you care."

"Ah, Nails," Johanna says. "Good of you to show up at last."

Lief cranes his neck to see what's going on. "Why all the Peacekeepers?"

Brutus snorts at him. "Are you aware of what happened last night?"

"I thought that was a firework."

Brutus's eyebrows raise so far that they just about disappear into his hairline. One of the Peacekeepers steps forward, and I realize with a jolt that it's the same Peacekeeper we ran into at the gate last night. "We need to question you three."

"Why?" I say. "We didn't do anything."

"Of course not," the Peacekeeper responds. She's sounds like she's talking to someone who's not all that bright. "We believe that the event last night was not an accident. The saboteur had unprecedented access to District Two's facilities, and everyone at last night's party had such access. As of now, we have no suspects, Mr. Lewis. We were rather hoping the three of you could change that."

"So what are our mentors doing here?" Spirit asks.

A flicker of irritation crosses the Peacekeeper's face. "They insisted."

I bet they did. Brutus is here to make sure that I don't embarrass District Two. Johanna - I'm almost positive that Johanna knows about Spirit - anyway, she's here to keep Spirit from incriminating herself, and she dragged Blight along under the pretext of keeping an eye on Lief. For their own twisted reasons, they're trying to protect us.

The Peacekeepers interrogate us in the living room, starting with Lief. He sails through, and better yet, barely lies at all. Then it's my turn. I have to keep reminding myself that I didn't actually do anything illegal, and the Peacekeeper notices how nervous I am. She asks me the same questions over and over again, trying to trip me up, and when I survive that, she picks up the pace - and the volume.

"Mr. Lewis," she shouts, "do you or do you not know anything about the events of last night?"

"No," I say. "I don't."

"Did you see anything?"

"No."

"Did you hear anything?"

"No."

The Peacekeeper is losing patience. "Did you help the people who blew up the supply depot last night?"

"No, I -"

Brutus slams his fist against the wall. "Enough! The boy doesn't know anything."

"I won't have you interfering with my -" the Peacekeeper starts, but Brutus steamrollers right over her.

"No. I won't have you badgering my victor! He is a proud citizen of District Two, and I find it insulting that you would suggest that any citizen of this district was involved in the attack. Leave him be."

The Peacekeeper doesn't cower, exactly, but she definitely backs off. "Thank you, Mr. Lewis, you may go. Miss Emerson, it's your turn."

Spirit gets up and walks steadily to the couch. The scrapes on her face have been covered with some of Aurelia's makeup, and although her limp is heavier than normal, only someone who's spent a lot of time with her would notice. The Peacekeeper asks her a bunch of simple questions that have me wondering why she's being interrogated at all. It's sort of like watching a cat toy with a mouse. At some point, Blight gets bored and wanders into the kitchen. As soon as he's gone, the Peacekeeper pounces.

"You disappeared for quite some time last night, Miss Emerson," the Peacekeepers says. "You were missing for about two and a half hours, and while you were gone, the bombing occurred. We've reviewed the footage from the party. You are nowhere to be found."

"Is there a question somewhere in there?" Spirit says, and I want to tell her to quit talking back. The last thing we need is to irritate the Peacekeeper.

"Yes. Where were you during this time?"

"I was in the bathroom," Spirit says. "I wasn't feeling well."

The Peacekeeper beckons one of her attendants forward and whispers a question in his ear. "No," the new Peacekeeper says out loud. "We don't have cameras in the bathrooms."

"I should hope not," Spirit says acidly. Blight is coming out of the kitchen with a glass of water. He takes a sip, starts laughing, and snorts water out of his nose. Johanna shakes her head.  
"You were in there for a long time," the Peacekeeper says, trying to regroup. She reaches out and pats Spirit on the shoulder. Spirit tries hard not to wince.

"I passed out," Spirit says. "I woke up on the floor."

The Peacekeeper's lips curve into a cold smile. "Can anyone confirm that?"

Before Spirit can respond, Johanna speaks. "I can," she says. "I went in there and found Nails facedown on the tiles. I propped her up against a wall so she wouldn't suffocate and left her there." Johanna waves a hand at Spirit. "Nails is always getting sick. She wiped out at the President's mansion the night before the interviews."

"You're sure." The Peacekeeper looks suspicious.

"I think I can recognize my own victor, stupid," Johanna says nastily.

"Well. It appears you have an alibi, Miss Emerson." The Peacekeeper doesn't look pleased.

"That's right," Spirit says.

Blight grunts. "Anything else?"

"No. That will be all."

The Peacekeepers let themselves out, and we all sit in silence for a while after they leave. I know by Spirit and Lief's white faces that they had a close shave. If Johanna hadn't stepped in, Spirit would have definitely been implicated in the bombings.

"In the future, I suggest you take better care of your victors," Brutus says to Johanna. "One of them fainted and the other ended up drunk. Next time they might end up dead."

"Is that a threat, you useless steroidal -"

"We didn't do anything," Lief interrupts. "No harm done."

Brutus checks his watch. "We're late for the train. District Twelve is probably already on board."

"I thought we were staying here for a few days," I say.

"Change of plans; we're going straight to District Seven. The Capitol wants to smooth this over."

Johanna laughs. "Whoever blew up the depot stopped their little invasion dead in its tracks. I highly doubt that things are going to smooth over all that well."

Brutus ignores her and hustles us out the door. I only have time to say a quick goodbye to Mom and tell her to call me when she hears about Crow's deployment. Then we're in a car being driven to the train station, and less than fifteen minutes after the Peacekeepers left, we're headed west to District Seven.

District Seven is cold and the sky is clear. There's no snow on the ground, and the people are quieter, more fearful. The Peacekeepers in District Two are our friends and neighbors; to the people of District Seven, they're more like guards at a prison. Everything is subdued. We spend less than twenty-four hours there; then we're back on the train. District Twelve is the same, but with snow. Before they send us home on separate trains, a Peacekeeper takes Spirit and I aside.

"You'll be allowed to visit each other," he says. He's older than most Peacekeepers, and he looks friendly. "A supply train runs every day between District Two and District Seven. We request that you notify us before you go, and any luggage that you bring will be searched upon your arrival. Other than that, you're free to visit each other whenever you like."

We say thank you, and after he leaves, Spirit says, "It'll probably be better if you come visit me in Seven. I don't think the Capitol wants me in District Two."

"Don't be so worried," I tell her. "It's not a bad place, and my family likes you. My birthday's in a couple weeks; come visit me then."

She agrees reluctantly. I think she's taking her fear of the Capitol a bit too seriously. No matter how angry they are about the bombing, they'd never touch a victor. And besides, I'm not even a suspect.

District Two is on the opposite side of the country from District Twelve. It takes a good nineteen hours by train to get there. Nineteen hours alone with Brutus, who glares at me whenever he sees me. "What's your problem?" I ask him finally, after I come into the dining room and he gets up to leave.

"You don't deserve to be a victor."

"Yeah, so what? I survived. I know you think that sucks, but you might as well get over it." I shrug. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You," Brutus says coldly, "are alive because of the talents of others. If it wasn't for that little girl from District Seven acting as your guardian angel, you'd be long dead. If there was going to be a victor from District Two, it should have been Clove. She was twice the fighter you will ever be."

"No, she wasn't."

"She wouldn't have made the mistakes you did."

"If she was so much better than me, why is she dead?" I say pointedly.

I don't even see the fist coming for me. Brutus moves fast, and he hits me so hard that my head snaps sideways and I stagger backwards into the wall. A random thought comes into my head; that Brutus smashed someone's head in with his bare hands during his Games. I'm a good fighter - top in my class at battle school, or they'd never have let me volunteer - but if Brutus wanted to kill me, I'd be dead. I struggle back to my feet, the side of my face bleeding and my eye swelling shut.

"Don't ever talk like that about my niece," Brutus snarls. Then he storms out of the room. My mind feels scrambled. His niece? Who's his niece? I thought we were talking about -

Clove. Suddenly, Brutus's hatred of me takes on a whole new dimension. He doesn't hate me because of Spirit, or because I wasn't the only victor this year - he hates me because I am a victor. Because I'm a victor and Clove is dead.

I always wondered why someone as small as Clove made it into battle school, why she was allowed to volunteer at sixteen instead of waiting until eighteen like the rest of us. She was good, yeah, but not that good. But she must have wanted to be in the Games, and she asked Brutus, her uncle, to make sure she got there.

I realize that Brutus must have pushed for the two-victor rule change as hard as Haymitch Abernathy and the District Seven mentors did, knowing that it meant he could bring both Clove and I home. I didn't even know he had siblings, let alone a niece. And I let her die, because I sent her, an undersized girl with minimal hand-to-hand combat skills. into a fight she couldn't win. No wonder Brutus can't stand to look at me.

I hide in my room until the train pulls into District Two. Then I have to suffer through Dido's fussing as she tries to cover up the bleeding cut on my head. There's no dealing with my eye, so I have to go to the press conference the mayor has set up with my eye swollen. No one asks about it. Then, after that, I'm allowed to go home and sleep, but the next morning I'm woken up ridiculously early to visit the battle school and meet the kids who want to volunteer.

"It's a Quarter Quell," I complain on the way there. "Nobody wants to volunteer for those."

"They will," Enobaria says, "because District Two needs victors."

District Two has two times the victors of every other district. "I still don't see why I have to talk to them."

"We've decided that a more practical approach is necessary," Lyme says without looking at me. "We want to tell the trainees the truth about life in the arena so they'll know what to expect. The board of trustees at the battle school believe that it will cut down on certain…indiscretions….that occurred during the last Games."

I don't respond, and I don't talk at all during the visit to the battle school. I can't wait to leave. If it's possible, being around Brutus has gotten even more uncomfortable, and it's a solid week before the board of trustees runs out of events at the battle school that require the presence of District Two's newest victor. During that time, Mom's due date passes. She's gotten so big she can barely walk, and Aurelia stays home from school to take care of her.

When I get home, she waves at me from the couch. "How was your visit, Cato?"

I shrug. I've started lying more and more to my family - for example, instead of telling them that Brutus had punched me when they asked about my eye, I said that I'd fallen and hit my face on a doorframe. Aurelia made some crack about not knowing how I won the Games if I was so clumsy, and I smiled and laughed, with Brutus's words ringing in my ears.

"It was okay," I say. "How are you?"

She makes a face. "All right. Come here. Talk to me. I feel as if I hardly see you anymore."

"I'm tired," I say. "I think I'm going to go lie down. And anyway, Mom, you need your rest."

Her face falls slightly, and I pretend I don't see it. Then she smiles. "What I need is for this baby to be born already. Your new sibling is taking his sweet time." She makes a shooing motion. "Go get some rest, sweetheart. I'll see you at dinner."

Aurelia appears out of the kitchen. "I'm cooking tonight." I fake a gagging fit, and Aurelia smacks my arm lightly. "Go away. I'll call you when its ready."

I go upstairs, stretch the phone cord into my room, close the door, and call Spirit. "I'm so stupid."

"Why?"

"She was his niece. Clove was Brutus's niece. That's why he hates me." I shake my head. "And I've been acting like he's just some asshole, and maybe he is, but his niece was killed and he couldn't even go home for her funeral because I was still alive. I'm so stupid."

"He doesn't really hate you," Spirit says.

"You don't know him."

"He's grieving," Spirit says. "When somebody they care about dies, people look for someone to blame. I know I did."

"Who did you know who died?" A few seconds after I say this, I realize how stupid it is. Spirit probably knows more dead people than I do. "Spirit, I'm -"

"His name was Valentine," she says, "and technically, he didn't die. I killed him."

"You love him, don't you?" I say. When she talks about him, Spirit gets this tone in her voice, like the one Mom uses when she talks about Crow's dad.

"Loved. Past tense. He's gone now."

"The first time you saw me, you called me Valentine," I remember.

"You look a lot like him," Spirit says.

"Is that why you like me?"

"No, of course not. Look -" Spirit sighs "- if I had cared about Valentine as much as I care about you, I'd be dead right now. To be honest, you were part of the reason why I made it out of the Games alive."

"You're the only reason I made it out alive." I mess with the phone cord for a second. "Brutus said I didn't deserve to win the Games."

"You say that like it's an insult," Spirit observes.

"It is. At least that's how everyone here thinks about it."

"Then don't think about it like that. When Brutus says that you didn't deserve to win, he's saying that he wishes Clove had won. It's not a judgment on you, or if it is, it's not one that should matter."

"Okay," I say. "Are you all right?"

"I'm adjusting," Spirit says. "Anyway, don't worry about Brutus. Just try not to irritate him too much."

Downstairs, the doorbell rings. "Cato," Aurelia yells, "can you get that? I have to take Mom to the bathroom."

"I have to go," I tell Spirit. "I love you, okay? Come see me soon."

"I will. Love you, too." Spirit hangs up, and I hurry down the stairs to open the door.

It's snowing lightly outside, and there is a trio of Peacekeepers standing on the front step. Once, Crow told me that Peacekeepers always come in threes; one to lead, one to follow, and one for backup. I wonder who's in charge, and I just stand there with snow blowing into the house, waiting for one of them to say something.

Then I take a second look at the group, and realize that the one in the back is Crow's friend Janus - he lived down the street from us. And he's crying. Why is he crying? I look back to the first Peacekeeper, and see that he's holding a folded Panem flag in his hands. The other Peacekeeper holds a battered, charred mechanic corps insignia.

"Cato, who is it?" Mom calls from inside, but I can't answer her. All I can think of is what I said before, thought before, whenever Spirit warned me about the danger of opposing the Capitol. And I guess I was right. No one will touch a victor. But a victor's family is fair game.

"No," I say.

The first Peacekeeper begins to speak, loud enough that my mother and sister can hear every word he's saying. "Mr. Lewis, your brother, Crow Lewis, was killed in action in District Eight six days ago."

My mother's scream drowns out everything. Lights go on in the other victors' houses; Brutus appears from his house across the street, glances at me, and goes back inside. Mom comes to the door, shoves me aside, grabs for the flag and the insignia and clutches them to her chest, tears streaming down her face. Her mouth is open in a wordless howl. I turn away and see Aurelia slumped against the wall, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. My family. This is what they would have been like if I'd been killed in the Games, and instead, this is how they are for Crow. I'd do anything to have it be the other way around.

I bolt up the stairs to my room, slam the door, lock it, shove my dresser up against the wall so that it can't be opened. Then I collapse onto my bed, the inescapable facts filling up my head and swallowing everything else. The rebellion in District Eight is over; Crow told me that the night of the victory party. It's been over since before I came home. There is no fighting in District Eight, and the northern invasion has come to a screeching halt. Somehow, the Capitol knew that Spirit and Lief had masterminded the bombing, that I'd sent Crow to help them. And because it couldn't hurt us, the Capitol took out its rage on my brother.

I know who is to blame for Crow's death. One person could have stopped all of it, one person could have kept him out of the line of fire. My mother's sobs fill the air, and I know I should go downstairs and comfort her, but I can't make myself do it. Aurelia will help her. My father will help her. Anger and grief are swallowing me whole, and I can't manage to cry a single tear. I won't be any use to her.

Anyway, no mother would want comfort from the person who killed her son.


	10. The Soldier

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Thanks to Anla'shok, RoseMaple, and Guest for reviewing.

* * *

Spirit:

The temperature is dropping rapidly. There's a thermometer nailed to one of the corner poles of the pavilion, and in the past hour or so, the red line has fallen from fifty degrees down to a nearly freezing thirty-five. The sky is light gray, and the drops of rain are beginning to freeze. I straighten up from my work and exhale, watching my breath form white clouds in the air. "It's going to snow, isn't it?"

Amber looks up at the sky as well. "Maybe. I don't know. It usually doesn't."

"The last time it snowed here was when I was twelve," Resin says, setting down his chisel, walking to the edge of the pavilion, and putting out a hand to catch the freezing rain. "Maybe this is our year. Then I'll get to carve some snowflakes on this thing."

He gives the gigantic log in the middle of the pavilion a slap. It's so heavy that it barely moves on its stands. Still, the motion brings Lief out from under the log, where's he's been working at scraping the bark away with a chainsaw. "Watch it! I didn't survive the Hunger Games just to get crushed by this thing!"

"Work faster next time," Resin advises. Lief makes an irritated noise and crawls back under the log.

"Some things never change," Amber says. "Give any man a chainsaw and he'll think he's the greatest."

I laugh. I never thought I'd be relieved to be back in District Seven, but as soon as I stepped off the train, the knot of anxiety I've been carrying in my chest for the past month relaxed. There are no cameras here. The Peacekeepers stay clear of the Victor's Village. While I was on the tour, Capitol doctors trained the medics at the local hospital to administer my transfusions. The decision was probably motivated by Capitol citizens' dislike for District Seven, but it frees me from having to deal with them, so I'm grateful. The more time I spend here, the more I realize that the people of District Seven are more like my own people than I originally believed. It's the small things I notice, like the jagged field surgery scars marking most people's skin because no one worries about appearance when they're stitching up a wound, or the warped sense of humor they all seem to share. Sometimes it's the way they work as a team, balancing out each other's strengths and weaknesses. They don't push back against the Peacekeepers, but they get back at them in subtle, careful ways that can't be traced; shrinking their uniforms when they send them to be washed, poking holes in the roofs of their houses so they leak when it rains. The girls who clean their houses feed the mice instead of poisoning them.

It's smart, subversive. It gives me hope that when the time comes, they'll band together and fight back.

Johanna comes out of her house, glancing up at the sky. "You guys still working on that sentinel tree? It's never going to get done."

Amber rolls her eyes. "Maybe if you'd help us, we'd actually finish it on time."

"I think it's stupid," Johanna says. "Who cares about the history of District Seven? It's not like anything interesting happened."

"I disagree," Amber says lightly. "We had three victors, two of them in the same year. It might snow twice in one decade. And we make a sentinel tree every once in a while. Why not make one now?"

Sentinel trees are one of District Seven's stranger traditions, a leftover from long before Panem was created. They're massive logs with designs carved all along their length. Each design is specific to a particular event. Once the log is covered in carvings, it's stood up lengthwise and planted in the ground. According to the legend that goes along with them, they protect the people who carve them from danger. District Seven has several of them. The two largest stand on either end of the bridge that crosses the river, and they're known as 'the Watchmen'. This new one, once it's finished, is going to go up in the middle of Victor's Village. This is less out of any symbolic resonance - after all, victors are the last people who need protection - and more because, once we've finished carving, we won't be able to move the damn thing down the hill.

It was Amber's idea, and when Lief and I got back from the tour, she'd already dragged the tree into the center of the Victor's Village and built the pavilion around it. We've been scraping bark off for a week, and we've finally cleared enough space to begin carving.

Amber stands at the far end of the tree. She's sectioned it off, assigning different places for each design. "What do you think should go here?" she asks.

"I think we should carve Spirit on that part," Resin says. Then, with a nasty grin, he adds, "And her boyfriend from District Two."

"Or not," I say. I pick up my hammer and point it at him. "Don't make me throw this at you."

Resin laughs. "You might be able to impress the Capitol with that, Spirit, but not us. People have been throwing things at me for years."

I toss it at him, missing on purpose by a foot or so. Resin dances out of range, singing, "Oh, she was a lass from the low country….He was a lord of high degree…She loved his lordship so tenderly…"

Lief sticks a foot out from beneath the log and trips Resin. He goes sprawling onto his back and they both start laughing. "Why don't you ever finish the song?" Lief asks Resin.

"Because it doesn't end nearly as happily as it begins," Amber says. "Come here, Spirit. Carving with a chisel is a different matter than carving with a knife."

She's sketched out a simple design on the white wood of the log, shading the parts that should be carved out. She shows me how to position the chisel, how many taps to give with the hammer, how to avoid splitting the wood; then she leaves me to it, moving on to a different section of the log. I focus on my work, smoothing out the carving periodically with a knife. The design begins to take shape; a pattern of knives, hammers, and axes forming the base of the sentinel tree. Johanna, Lief, and I all used knives in our Games. Blight and I used axes. I used hammers. It honors District Seven's victors.

District Two honors its victors, but not with carvings - with larger-than-life statues, depicting them at the moment they won the Games. My guess is that they won't be adding Cato to the row of statues any time soon, not if Brutus has anything to do with it. I understand grief too well to begrudge Brutus his sadness over Clove's death, but his anger at Cato - just like my anger with Lief once was - is misplaced. And I have a feeling that he'd be cruel even without the added reason.

"Amber, how does this look?" I ask, calling her over. I've finished all the carving that can be done on this face of the log, and it's rough and haphazard-looking, nothing like the perfection of Amber's work.

She studies it. "Not bad for your first attempt. Your edges could use some smoothing out, and you need to watch your chisel angle. Other than that, though, this is looking good. When we rotate the log, I'll let you sketch out the rest of the design yourself."

I must look displeased with my work, because Amber pats my shoulder. "You've been carving for about six months, Spirit. With some time and a little more practice, you'll get better."

This isn't something we do in the north. Art isn't important to us. Neither are possessions, really, because everything you own could be lost the next time Panem bombs your settlement, and even if you see it coming, your family matters more. No one would take the time to develop a skill like this, not when we could be tending the fields, feeding the animals, practicing our shooting or our fighting or studying tactics. The only thing we indulge in is our storytelling, and the songs we sing at funerals. Aside from that, we don't have a culture, really.

"Maybe that's a mistake," Lief says. He's migrated down the log to where I'm sitting.

"What?" I say tiredly. I push my hair out of my face, but it's too long to push back, and too short to braid out of the way. I should never have grown out my soldier's buzz cut.

"The Capitol has this way of life that they're crazy about," Lief says. "They'd do anything to protect it. We aren't really attached to the way we live."

"That's because our way of life is not dying, Lief," I say. "Don't get philosophical on me."

"No, that's what I mean," Lief persists. "There should be more to things than 'I survived it'. Shouldn't there?"

"I guess." I shrug. "I don't know. I don't think about it."

"Does it hurt your brain?" Lief elbows me, grinning.

"No, it's just pointless. You can think about that stuff because you didn't grow up like I did."

"Hello, Spirit? We grew up in the same place."

"No, you grew up in Sanctuary," I remind him. "The south is a whole different ballgame."

Sanctuary is in the northern half of my people's lands, closer to the Arctic circle than it is to Panem's borders. It sits on an island in the middle of a massive bay, reachable only by boat or flight. Our greatest city is maybe a fourth as big as the Capitol, but in the northern wilderness, you'd think that even a city that size would be noticeable. But the bay has many islands, and it's out of the range of the Capitol's hovercrafts. Until Valentine gave up its location, no one ever found it, and after the attack, we used what remained of our communications arrays to hack their system and erase the coordinates. It's the safest place in the north.

The southern lands are a different matter. The Capitol's hovercrafts can fly nearly a thousand miles before having to turn around and refuel, meaning that a large portion of the northern population lies within their reach. In the town where I grew up, bombings were a regular occurrence, and we had ground invasions several times. When my father moved me to Sanctuary, I didn't understand that the wail of the air raid sirens were only drills. I lived in the southern lands for the first four years of my life, but I never forgot the lessons I learned there. Death can come from anywhere, at anytime, for anyone. No place is sacred. And there's no set of rules that can keep you safe.

"That's depressing," Lief tells me.

"It was my life. At least for a little while."

From somewhere in the Victor's Village, a phone rings. After six rings, it stops, making me think that it's in Johanna or Blight's house and one of them has gotten it. Then it starts ringing again, and just like before, stops after six rings. When it begins to ring for a third time, Johanna stomps out of her house, goes to Lief's, and opens the door, listening to see if it came from there. Then she turns around, points at me, and yells, "Nails, answer your goddamn phone!"

By the time I get to my house, the phone has stopped ringing, so I have to stand by it and wait for it to ring again. When it does, I snatch it up. "Hello?"

I don't recognize the voice on the other end. It's rough and choked with tears. "Spirit?"

"Who is this?" I snap.

"It's me. Aurelia. Cato's sister," the caller says. "Spirit, you have to come to District Two now."

"Why?"

She lets out a dry sob. "My brother's dead."

I'm aware of my heart pounding, sweat beading on my skin, adrenaline rushing through me. It's battle mind, swallowing me whole, only there's nothing to fight. She can't mean what I think she means. She can't. "Which brother?"

"Crow," Aurelia says, and although I hate myself for it, relief sweeps over me. "He was killed in District Eight. The fighting there…"

"Aurelia, I'm so sorry," I say. And I am, but when she said "My brother's dead", my first thought was of Cato. "I'm so sorry. When did you hear?"

"Two days ago. I was taking care of Mom and I told Cato to answer the door." Aurelia swallows so loudly that I can hear it through the phone. "The Peacekeepers told him. He ran up to his room and he hasn't come out in two days. I tried to get him to come out but he won't listen to me. You have to come to District Two. You have to help him."

Whether or not my presence in District Two will help depends on two things. One, if Cato's realized why his brother was killed, and two, who he blames for it. The first is a given. The second, I'm not so sure about. If he blames me for it, my presence will only worsen what already seems like an awful situation, and I should be staying as far away from District Two as possible. "I don't know, Aurelia…can you put Cato on the phone?"

"I told you, he won't come out of his room," Aurelia says. "The door's locked, and I think he pushed his dresser up against it. You have to come help him. Please."

"I don't know," I say again, selfishly.

"He loves you," Aurelia says. Her voice seems stronger; like her brother, the world makes more sense to her if she has a battle to win. "If you needed him, he'd drop everything and be on the next train."

I close my eyes. "Okay. I'll be there by tonight."

Aurelia hangs up the phone with a click, and as I replace the receiver on the wall, I find Lief, Resin, Johanna, and Amber staring at me. "What happened?"

"Cato's brother is dead. I have to go to District Two," I say woodenly.

"I'll call the Peacekeepers and tell them," Lief says. "Go get packed."

"And hurry, Nails," Johanna adds. "The supply train leaves in half an hour."

I limp upstairs as fast as I can, pulling a bag out of my closet and stuffing it with clothes, barely glancing at what I'm putting in. I drag the bag downstairs and head for the door, only to have Johanna stop me. "It's snowing, Nails. Get a coat."

I grab the first one I see, knee-length and charcoal grey, and shrug it on. "Okay. I'm done. Can we go?"

Lief goes in the car with me to the train station. He doesn't say much, which is rare for him. "I did this, didn't I?" I say after a while, to fill the silence.

"You didn't do anything. The Capitol did," Lief says without looking at me. I know he's lying, but I don't call him on it. "If Cato's smart, he'll understand."

The supply train is packed full of lumber. "What's this for?" Lief asks the engineer.

"Construction," he grunts. "Some building exploded. You'll have to ride in the engine, Miss Emerson."

He climbs into the locomotive and offers me a grease-stained hand. I take it and climb in without a backward glance. As the train lurches into motion, Lief sends a thought my way.

_Call me when you get there, okay? And be careful_.

_I always am_. Then the train picks up speed and I feel Lief's thoughts sliding away from me. Going, going…gone.

The supply trains, as I soon find out, are just as fast as the passenger trains, although less comfortable. I wedge myself into the only space not taken up by machines or the engineer, which happens to be under the console with my back against the service hatch. I tuck my knees in and try to stay out of the way. Try not to think about what will happen when I get to District Two. Try not to think about how Crow Lewis would still be alive if he'd never met me. Try not to think at all.

Aurelia and an unfamiliar Peacekeeper are waiting for me on the station platform. I hand my bag over to the Peacekeeper to be searched and gingerly hug Aurelia. Her eyes are dry, but puffy, and I suspect she's working hard to keep her tears in check. "I'm sorry about Crow."

"Yeah," Aurelia says. The Peacekeeper passes me my suitcase and Aurelia and I step off the platform. A battered car is waiting for us, and Aurelia gets behind the wheel. The car screeches and groans as she turns the key, but then she smacks the dashboard with the flat of her hand and it wheezes to life. The drive to the Victor's Village passes in silence, punctuated by the occasional sniffle.

At the house, Aurelia leads me up the stairs. Most of the doors are closed. One hangs open, and inside, I can see Cato's mother sitting on the floor, his father kneeling beside her. Her face is hidden in her hands. I look at Aurelia, a question on my lips. In a broken voice, she says, "That was Crow's room," and leads me past it to the farthest door. When I try the knob, it's locked.

Aurelia knocks on the door. "Cato, seriously, let me in. Spirit's here now. She came all the way from District Seven to see you."

No response. She hits the door again. "I'm not kidding, Cato. Open the door."

Silence. Finally, Aurelia shakes her head. "Forget it. We're going to have to try a different way."

Stopping only for me to put my bag down in what I think is a guest room, she heads down the stairs, out the front door, and around to the back of the house. There's one open window, on the second floor. Well, that's inaccurate. One wall of the room is basically a window. Inside, I can see a figure sitting on the bed, facing away from the window. "Is that Cato's room?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"Does that window even open?"

"Yeah. There are panels. Can you climb up there?"

I study the house. The walls are brick, not log like my house. My house I could climb easily, but not this. Then my eyes fall on a drain spout running up to the roof. "I think so. Just have an ambulance standing by."

Aurelia gives a dry laugh. I pull off my shoes and socks - I've always found it easier to climb barefoot - and set my hands on the pipe. There are ridges along the side I can use as footholds, and if I'm desperate, I can wedge a toe into the brickwork. The main thing, I remind myself as I work my way up, is to think positive and not look down. And hope that no wind gusts come along.

I get to the second story of the house, loosen my death grip on the drainpipe, reach out, and knock on Cato's window. I can't see a thing, and there's no immediate response, so I knock again, louder. Then I start to lose patience. I morph out the claws on my free hand and scrape them across the glass, producing one of the worst sounds I've ever heard. A few seconds later, the upper half of one of the panes of glass swings out and Cato's face appears.

"What are you doing here?" he says.

"I came to see you," I say. The hand still holding onto the drainpipe slips a bit, and I have to dig my claws into the mortar between the bricks to keep myself on the wall. "Can I come in?"

Cato is still staring at me as if I've fallen from the sky. Then he gives his head a little shake, says, "Yeah, of course," grabs my hand, and drags me across the space and through the window.

"You still have your strength, I see," I comment after he deposits me on the floor of my room.

"I thought Aurelia was lying when she said you were here," Cato says. His back is to me. "Otherwise, I would have…well, I wouldn't have made you climb up the side of my house."

"I don't mind. Are you all right?" I ask. I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. His room is a mess, and it has the distinctive smell of a place that hasn't aired out in a while. When he doesn't answer me, I ask again. "Cato. Are you all right?"

"They killed my brother," Cato says after a minute. "Because of me."

I close my eyes. This was what I was afraid of when I tried to keep Cato out of the mission. He may not have believed that the Capitol would retaliate, or maybe he thought they'd never find out, but I knew that they would, and I wanted to spare him from this. He finally turns to face me, and I realize that, just like Aurelia, he looks broken. I've never seen him cry, but it looks like he's been doing a lot of it over the past few days. So rather than starting into the whole it-wasn't-your-fault speech - which we both know isn't true - I step forward and wrap my arms around him. He stands stiffly at first; then he hugs me back tightly. We stand there for the longest time. Then snow starts blowing through the window and I break away to close it. When I turn back around, Cato is sitting on the bed.

I sit down beside him. "Did they tell you what happened?"

"They said his hovercraft was shot down. In District Eight." Cato laughs bitterly. "They think I'm stupid. District Eight was done a week before he was even deployed."

A hovercraft crash wouldn't be hard to fake. They could have said it was a malfunction, a tragic accident, and left it at that. If the Capitol is blaming the rebels for Crow's death, it means that they're trying to make sure that the Lewis family remains loyal to them. After all, why would you side with the people who killed your son, your brother? "So you don't believe them?"

"Of course not," Cato says. "You told me they'd do something like this. I just didn't believe it."

His hands curl into fists, then relax. He looks lost, as though he can't find it in him even to be angry. "Hell. I'm so stupid. I let him die."

"No, you sent him after me," I say. "It was my fault."

Cato looks at me. "Could you have made it past the roadblock? If I hadn't sent him?"

I sigh. There are two answers here; the answer that will put the blame on me and make Cato feel like he's not culpable in his brother's death, and the true answer. I'm leaning toward the former, and it must show on my face, because Cato says, "Tell me the truth. I want to know."

"Maybe," I say slowly, weighing my words. "Maybe I would have gotten lucky and made it through the roadblock. But I had no idea it was there, Cato. I would have been walking into a trap and I would have been walking into it blind. I probably would have been killed if you hadn't sent Crow to help me. You saved my life."

He nods.

"Do you wish you'd done something different?"

Cato shakes his head. "How do you expect me to answer that? I didn't know Crow was going to be killed, but I knew you would be. I made the decision that I thought was right. And now I guess I have to live with the consequences. My brother's dead. But I still have you."

"This is what war is like," I tell him. "You make the decision that you think is right with the information you have, and then you deal with whatever happens next."

"I think the Hunger Games were easier."

"Trust me. They were." I take Cato's hand, and, in an uncharacteristic display of affection, bring it to my lips. "I'm so sorry about your brother."

"I miss him," Cato says miserably.

"I know."

We're quiet for a long time after that. "How long are you going to stay in District Two?" Cato finally asks me.

"As long as you need me to." It doesn't matter that the Capitol most likely wants me out. "When's the funeral?"

"It's more of a memorial service," Cato says. "The fire was pretty bad after the crash. It's not like -" his voice hitches "- it's not like there's much to bury. Anyway, it's tomorrow. I think that's why Aurelia called you when she did. She didn't want me to miss it."

"Will it be okay if I'm here for it?" I ask. "I'd like to be there."

"He'd want you to be there. He liked you." Cato takes a deep breath. "What should I tell my family? About all of this?"

I don't say anything, and Cato answers his own question. "They'll be happier if they don't know about this. Safer too, probably."

He takes another deep breath. "Okay." He stands up, walks to the door, and in a smooth, easy motion, drags the dresser out of the way. "Are you coming?"

I go to him, and he takes my hand. "Don't let go."

"I won't."

We walk downstairs to where his family sits in the living room, and they cry together. At some point, baskets of food and flowers start arriving, piling up on the kitchen counter, the stairs, the floor. One, hand-delivered by Peacekeepers, bears the Capitol seal and a few brief words of condolence. I have to stop Cato from tossing it into the fireplace.

Mrs. Lewis is so pregnant that she can barely walk, so it falls to Aurelia and I to cobble together some kind of dinner from the food people have sent. "Are you going to speak at the funeral?" I ask her.

She shakes her head, removing apples from a monstrous fruit basket and beginning to slice them. It amazes me how the richer districts can get fruit out of season while the rest are living in poverty. "No. Cato is, and Mom, I think. I've never been to a funeral before. Have you? What are they like in District Seven?"

She's twelve. By the time I was her age, I'd been to more funerals than I could remember, including the funerals of both my parents. I remember my mother as an indistinct, smiling figure, and I can barely recall my father's face. I suppose it makes a difference when your first funeral is someone you knew well.

"Well," I say after a minute, "we wear black. We bury the person, and people who knew them well talk about them."

Aurelia nods. "And do people cry?"

"Of course."

In the north we wear white, and we burn the bodies. There are eulogies - that's one thing that's probably similar everywhere - and then, as the body goes up in flames, we sing the death hymn to send the person's soul on their way.

The first verse is sung by one person, usually someone who was close to the deceased. They sing the first chorus alone as well, and then the rest of the crowd joins in, the song building and then falling back into the one voice. Then it's slowly joined by the rest of the singers until the end of the song. The song itself is old, from before the war, and there's apparently some history to it. I couldn't tell you what it's about, except to say that it's about a journey, and at the end, a goodbye.

Lief sang some of it to Clove as she died; the solo section toward the end. I sang it for Valentine when I burned his body. I want to sing it for Crow, to let him know that I honor his sacrifice and that I'll make sure that he isn't forgotten, but I should leave his funeral to the people who loved him. If I want to honor Cato's brother, I'll do it with my actions, not words.

All throughout the silent dinner, and later that night, when I'm sitting sleepless in the guest room, I can't get the song out of my head. Finally I give in and sing it as quietly as I can, wishing I had a few more voices to round out the chorus section. My voice sounds painfully thin, a pathetic goodbye for someone who saved my life and gave my people a chance.

At the funeral the next morning, I try to stay out of sight, but Cato won't let go of my hand and I end up sitting in the front row that's supposed to be reserved for family members. I borrowed the black dress I'm wearing from Aurelia. Crow's funeral is well-attended; Aurelia points out old neighbors, friends of the family, and Crow's friends from the Peacekeeper Academy. All the victors are here. As the coffin is brought out, it's followed by a small group of camera-wielding Capitol citizens. Cato sits bolt upright in his seat and, before I can stop him, storms toward the cameras and proceeds to scare them away. When one particularly tenacious cameraman refuses to back off, Cato pulls the camera from his hand and throws it to the ground.

"Was that really necessary?" Cato's father asks him when he sits back down.

"It's a funeral. They shouldn't be here." Cato says shortly, and that's the end of the subject. His entire family is dry-eyed. They must have done all of their crying in the past few days.

The Peacekeeper who trained Crow speaks first; then Mrs. Lewis; then Cato. Then Cato and five others hoist the casket onto their shoulders and carry it down to the graveyard with the rest of us following. The graveside service is short, and after the grave is filled in, the crowd disperses. I notice Brutus pausing by the newest headstone, which must be Clove's, and I avert my eyes.

Cato is studying Crow's headstone. I walk up beside him. "You all right?"

He nods. "What are you going to do to them?"

"Them?"

"The Capitol."

"If we get the chance, my people will destroy them," I say carefully. Cato can be obtuse at times, but he's always been aware of our intentions.

A ghost of a smile crosses his face. "I'm good at destroying things."

I want to scream at him. How can he say this while looking at his brother's headstone? Maybe President Snow thinks he's reeled Cato back in for now, but what about the next time he decides to cross the line? I don't want to be coming back here for Aurelia's funeral. But I understand anger, and revenge, too, and so I keep my silence. And this is Cato's choice. If he wants to fight, who am I to stop him?

"How did your parents die?" he asks me quietly.

"My mother died of radiation sickness," I say. "My father was shot by Peacekeepers on the southern border when I was four years old."

"And you don't have any siblings?"

"No." People considered it a miracle that my mother survived my birth; everyone said she was mad to try for a second child. I guess they were right.

Cato wanders aimlessly to the next gravestone; Clove's. Brutus has left by now, the only sign that he was there at all a spray of bright flowers lying in the snow. "So many people I know are dying," he says quietly.

I know what he means. The border wars have intensified more in the past five years than they have at any other time since the fall of District Thirteen, and as a result, my generation has been decimated by the conflict. In the back of my mind I have a long list of the dead, friends, neighbors, an endless roll call of kids who never got to grow up. "It's going to stop," I tell Cato. "I'll make it stop."

He looks up from Clove's headstone and nods, holding out a hand to me. I take it and we walk out of the graveyard together.

After we return to the Lewis's house, I call Lief, and tell him that I don't know when I'll be coming back. Then Cato's father taps me on the shoulder and asks if he can use the phone. I say goodbye to Lief, hang up, and back down the hallway, wondering who he's calling.

I learn the answer the next morning at breakfast, which is when Cato's parents announce that they believe it's best for him to get out of District Two for a while.

"What?" Cato says. He sets down his fork, stunned. "I just got home."

"Your brother's death obviously hit you hard. We think that you should take some time to recover away from all of this. From what I understand, District Seven will be happy to host you." His mother smiles, clearly hoping for him to drop it.

"Why?" Cato demands. "Why should I have to leave?"

"We can't have another outburst like you had at the funeral," Cato's father says, and he glances at his wife and daughter. I know what he's doing, and I realize that I probably should have given him more credit. He knows that I was the reason Crow was killed, and as such, he wants me as far away from his family as possible until this dies down. Unfortunately, he won't be able to throw me out without Cato having a fit, and his solution is to get rid of both of us. "I'm sure you understand."

"Yeah. I get it," Cato says. "You don't want me here."

"No, that's not -" his mother starts, but Cato pushes back from the table and stands up.

"Excuse me. I have to go pack."

After a minute, I excuse myself as well and follow him upstairs. He has a suitcase open on his bed and he's tossing clothes into it haphazardly. I step up beside him and start removing the excess clothing. "We do wash our clothes in District Seven. I don't think you need fourteen pairs of underwear."

He looks at the pile of clothes I've pulled out, then down into the suitcase at what's left, and sits down on the bed. "Where am I going to live?"

"My house. Or Lief's. You could move in with Johanna if you wanted to get scared out of your mind every morning." I shrug and start readjusting things in the suitcase for efficient use of space. "I've wanted you to come visit for a while. It's not a bad place."

"You like it there?"

"I like it all right," I say, shrugging again. "It's not home. But it's the best place for me."

Cato looks hopeful for a second, then deflates again. "I'm a Career. They're going to hate me."

"You're allies with Lief and I," I say firmly. "They're going to love you. And Cato, your dad…he's just trying to protect your family."

"I know," Cato says. He closes the suitcase and leaves the room, me following him. To my surprise he heads to the guest room and picks up my suitcase. "We don't want to miss our train."

Cato falls asleep with his head on my shoulder an hour into the train ride. I spend most of the ride poking at my leg brace, wondering if there's any way to fix my limp. My hipbone is splayed outward as opposed to facing straight. Could I get it to face forward again? The attack in District Two highlighted issues I haven't wanted to deal with; like the fact that I'm no longer completely mobile. If not for some lucky escapes, I would have been caught, trapped inside the supply depot to die like everyone else. And I'm not going to sit on the sidelines during the rebellion.

Back in the north, during my ill-fated stint as a medic, we dealt with a soldier whose arm had been badly broken in the field. The injury hadn't set well, leaving his arm permanently bowed outward, and he was unable to shoot a gun or even use the arm properly. The only treatment for such an injury was to break the bone again and reset it properly. Could I do that with my hip? But it's not just my hip, it's my entire pelvis, and it's unlikely that I could break one side without damaging the other. Not to mention those metal pieces holding together the spots where the bone was too damaged to restore. It's an option, but not one I'd like to use.

Cato awakens with a start as the train lurches to a stop in District Seven. It's still snowing, but lightly, and there's a huddle of people on the platform waiting for us. I spot Lief, Resin, and Amber. Johanna is hovering somewhere in the offing, probably dragged along by the others. Getting off the train and trying to manage my bag as well, I slip, miss the step, and fall face-first into the snow. To his credit, Resin doesn't snicker; instead, he races forward and pulls me to my feet.

"Spirit, you're not going to believe this," Resin says.

"Not going to believe what?" I say.

"Ask Lief."

I turn to ask Lief, but Lief is talking to Cato, who's climbed out of the train with more grace than I did. "I'm sorry about your brother," Lief says, and Cato nods. Then he sees me dusting snow off my jacket.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just fell over. It happens a lot." I nod to let him know I'm fine; then I look past him and fix Lief with a glare. "What happened?"

"Not here," Lief says.

We ride back to the Victor's Village and Lief seems intent on deferring the issue, but I park myself under the pavilion where the sentinel tree sits unfinished and refuse to move. "What happened, Lief? I'm not moving until you tell me."

Lief shoots a nasty glare at Resin. "You were supposed to stay quiet!"

"I can't," Resin says. "It's just so -"

"What is it?" Cato says loudly from just behind Resin, making him jump. "Spit it out."

Lief and I know not to be scared of Cato, and Johanna and Amber aren't scared of anything, but Resin panics. All he's seen of Cato is the fearsome Career who breaks necks with his bare hands. "It's a letter," he gabbles out. "A message from the north."

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